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VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican secretary of state and his deputy have both tested positive for the coronavirus, Vatican officials said Tuesday.
(RNS) — Tu BiShvat, the Jewish new year of the trees, barely registers on most Jewish calendars, except as an occasion to plant trees or eat fruit and nuts.
ROME (AP) — Pope Francis has long lamented that he can't walk around town unnoticed like he used to before becoming pope. But he seems to have nevertheless kept his sense of humor after he was caught on camera making an unannounced visit to a Rome record shop this week.
ROME (AP) — Pope Francis grew up listening to the opera on the radio, is a fan of Argentine tango and thinks Mozart “lifts you to God.”
But it still came as a something of a shock to see the 85-year-old pontiff coming out of a downtown Rome record shop late Tuesday with a CD in hand.
ROME (AP) — Pope Francis took the first step Monday to reorganize the Vatican’s powerful doctrine office, removing the No. 2 official widely believed responsible for a controversial document barring blessings for same-sex couples because God “cannot bless sin.”
ROME (AP) — Pope Francis suggested Monday that getting vaccinated against the coronavirus was a “moral obligation" and denounced how people had been swayed by “baseless information” to refuse one of the most effective measures to save lives during the pandemic.
ROME (AP) — Pope Francis offered his condolences Monday to the victims of the “devastating” apartment fire in the Bronx borough of New York that killed 19 people, nine of them children.
Francis sent a telegram to New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan offering “heartfelt condolences and the assurance of his spiritual closeness” to those affected by the blaze.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis baptized 16 babies in the splendor of the Sistine Chapel on Sunday, resuming a decades-old Vatican tradition which had been interrupted last year by the pandemic.
Francis told the parents of the nine girls and seven boys whom he formally ushered into the Catholic church through baptism that their duty was to “preserve the Christian identity” of their children.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Christians around the world on Thursday marked Epiphany, known as Three Kings Day for Catholics and the Baptism of Christ for the Orthodox, with a series of celebrations.
ROME (AP) — Pope Francis called Wednesday for simplified adoption procedures and urged couples to have more children as he presided over his first general audience of the New Year with a novel supporting cast that emphasized his call for a less-clericalized Catholic Church.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — In his New Year's wishes to the world, Pope Francis encouraged people Saturday to focus on the good which unites them and decried violence against women while acknowledging that the coronavirus pandemic has left many scared and struggling amid economic inequality.
ROME (AP) — Pope Francis sought Sunday to encourage married couples, acknowledging that the pandemic has aggravated some family problems but urging couples to seek help and always remember three key words in a marriage: “Please, thanks and sorry.”
Christmas arrived around the world Saturday amid a surge in COVID-19 infections that kept many families apart, overwhelmed hospitals and curbed religious observances as the pandemic was poised to stretch into a third year.
ROME (AP) — Pope Francis prayed Saturday for an end to the coronavirus pandemic, using his Christmas Day address to urge health care for all, vaccines for the poor and for dialogue to prevail in resolving the world’s conflicts.
ROME (AP) — Pope Francis celebrated Christmas Eve Mass before an estimated 2,000 people in St. Peter’s Basilica on Friday, going ahead with the service despite the resurgence in COVID-19 cases that has prompted a new vaccine mandate for Vatican employees.
ROME (AP) — Pope Francis on Thursday removed the head of the Vatican office that handles migration, the environment and COVID-19 issues, and put a trusted cardinal and one of the Holy See’s most influential nuns at the helm temporarily.
ROME (AP) — Pope Francis urged Vatican cardinals, bishops and bureaucrats Thursday to embrace humility this Christmas season, saying their pride, self-interest and the “glitter of our armor” was perverting their spiritual lives and corrupting the church’s mission.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis has greeted an Afghan family he met during a visit this month to a refugee camp in Greece and who he helped resettle to Italy because the youngest child needs medical care.
ROME (AP) — Plans are progressing for a possible meeting next year between Pope Francis and the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church following their historic encounter in Havana in 2016, a top Russian Orthodox official said Wednesday.
ROME (AP) — Pope Francis has denounced domestic violence against woman as “nearly satanic” and said parents should never slap their children.
Francis made the comments in a televised encounter with an abused woman who recently fled her home with her four children.
ROME (AP) — Pope Francis doubled down Saturday on his efforts to quash the old Latin Mass, forbidding the celebration of some sacraments according to the ancient rite in his latest salvo against conservatives and traditionalists.
ROME (AP) — Pope Francis celebrated his 85th birthday on Friday, a milestone made even more remarkable given the coronavirus pandemic, his summertime intestinal surgery and the weight of history: His predecessor retired at this age and the last pope to have lived any longer was Leo XIII over a century ago.
ROME (AP) — Pope Francis agreed Monday to meet with the commission that published a ground-breaking report into clergy sexual abuse in the French Catholic Church and, separately, expressed “sadness” over the sudden downfall of the archbishop of Paris, according to French bishops who met with him.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis on Sunday offered prayers for Ukraine, and urged dialogue and not weapons as Russia masses tens of thousands of troops on its border with Ukraine.
Francis didn't mention Russia by name in comments to the faithful during the traditional Sunday blessing in St.
ROME (AP) — Pope Francis on Saturday drew attention to a problem that the Vatican has long sought to downplay: the abuses of power by mother superiors against nuns who, because of their vows of obedience, have little recourse but to obey.
ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE (AP) — Pope Francis said Monday there were plans for a possible second meeting with the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, after their historic 2016 encounter in Cuba became a landmark in mending relations severed by the 1,000-year-old schism that divided Christianity.
ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE (AP) — Pope Francis said Monday he accepted the resignation of the archbishop of Paris because the monsignor could no longer govern effectively thanks to the “gossip” about his relationship with a woman a decade ago.
ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Pope Francis ended his visit to Greece on Monday by encouraging its young people to follow their dreams and not be tempted by the consumerist “sirens” of today that promise easy pleasures.
LESBOS, Greece (AP) — Pope Francis returned Sunday to the Greek island of Lesbos to offer comfort to migrants at a refugee camp and blast what he said was Europe's indifference and self-interest “that condemns to death those on the fringes.”
ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Pope Francis warned Saturday that the “easy answers” of populism and authoritarianism are threatening democracy in Europe and called for fresh dedication to promoting the common good rather than narrow, nationalist interests.
ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Pope Francis was heckled by an elderly Greek Orthodox priest on Saturday as he arrived for a meeting with the head of the country’s Orthodox Church, evidence of the lingering distrust between some Orthodox and Catholics 1,200 years after Christianity was cleaved in half.
NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — Pope Francis on Friday denounced the “culture of indifference” that the West shows migrants as the Vatican confirmed that at least a dozen asylum-seekers would be transferred from Cyprus to Italy in a gesture of solidarity with European countries that have received a disproportionate share of would-be refugees.
NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — Pope Francis on Thursday urged Greek Cypriots and the breakaway Turkish Cypriots to resume talks on reunifying the Mediterranean island nation, saying threats and shows of force were only prolonging the “terrible laceration” its people have endured for nearly a half-century.
PARIS (AP) — Pope Francis on Thursday accepted the resignation of the archbishop of Paris, who unexpectedly offered to step down last week after admitting to an “ambiguous” relationship with a woman in 2012.
LESBOS, Greece (AP) — When Pope Francis visited the Greek island of Lesbos in 2016, he was so moved by the stories he heard from families fleeing war in Iraq and Syria that he wept and brought a dozen refugees home with him.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis on Sunday expressed pain and sorrow at the deaths and suffering of migrants crossing the English Channel, at the border between Poland and Belarus and in the Mediterranean Sea.
PARIS (AP) — The archbishop of Paris has offered to step down after admitting to having had an “ambiguous” relationship with a woman in 2012, the archdiocese said.
Archbishop Michel Aupetit, who has led the Paris church since 2018, sent a letter to Pope Francis offering to resign following a report in Le Point magazine.
NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — Pope Francis is arranging to transfer a number of migrants to Italy from the east Mediterranean island nation of Cyprus, where he is opening a three-day visit next week, a Cypriot government official said on Thursday.
ROME (AP) — Pope Francis told Lebanon’s prime minister on Thursday that he was praying that God would help Lebanon “get up” and get back on its feet following an unprecedented economic crisis that has thrown three quarters of the country’s 6 million people, including a million Syrian refugees, into poverty.
SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) — Bulgaria and North Macedonia began periods of national mourning on Wednesday, a day after a bus traveling through Bulgaria carrying tourists to neighboring North Macedonia crashed and caught fire, killing 45 people.
ROME (AP) — Pope Francis sent his condolences Tuesday to the victims of the Christmas parade crash in Wisconsin that killed five people and said he was praying for “spiritual strength which triumphs over violence and overcomes evil with good.”
LONDON (AP) — British politicians came together Tuesday for a Mass to mourn the death of slain lawmaker David Amess, with Pope Francis sending a message calling for mourners to “combat evil with good.”