ROME (AP) — Congo’s Catholic bishops, coping with disappointment over a scrubbed visit by Pope Francis, said Saturday that his decision to go ahead with a trip to Canada was an “encouraging sign” that his knee treatment was working, as they held out hope for a rescheduled date.
ROME (AP) — Pope Francis celebrated families Saturday and urged them to shun “selfish” decisions that are indifferent to life as he closed out a big Vatican rally a day after the U.S. Supreme Court ended constitutional protections for abortion.
ROME (AP) — The Vatican newspaper is starting a new monthly edition dedicated to the poor and people on the margins, aimed at not only telling their stories but involving them in the paper's production and distribution, the Vatican said Friday.
ROME (AP) — The Vatican on Thursday released the itinerary for Pope Francis’ July 24-30 visit to Canada, providing a sign he intends to go ahead with the trip despite knee problems that forced him to cancel a six-day visit to Africa also planned for next month.
ROME (AP) — Pope Francis has ordered the online publication of 170 volumes of its Jewish files from the recently opened Pope Pius XII archives, the Vatican announced Thursday, amid renewed debate about the legacy of its World War II-era pope.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Families from many places, including war-ravaged Ukraine, told Pope Francis their stories of joys, sorrows and hopes at an event on a stage at the Vatican Wednesday evening.
The occasion at the Vatican’s auditorium was part of events this week for the World Meeting of Families, a Catholic church tradition established by Pope John Paul II in 1994.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis on Wednesday blasted the violence that plagues Mexico as he mourned the slayings of two of his “brother” Jesuits who were gunned down in a remote Mexican church by apparent drug gang members.
JUBA, South Sudan (AP) — Some young girls are still auctioned off into marriage for cows in South Sudan — one of the social challenges that activists had hoped to highlight during Pope Francis’ now-postponed visit.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis may have canceled his planned trip to Congo because of his bad knee, but he had a visit Tuesday from one of Congo’s brightest basketball stars who briefed him on his humanitarian efforts back home.
ROME (AP) — One of Pope Francis’ proposed new cardinals, the retired bishop of Ghent, Belgium, has bowed out of accepting the honor over his own insufficient response to cases of clergy sexual abuse, the Belgian bishops' conference said.
ROME (AP) — Pope Francis has taken another step to reign in new religious groups in the Catholic Church after their unregulated proliferation in recent decades led to abuses in governance that allowed spiritual and sexual misconduct to go unchecked.
ROME (AP) — Pope Francis has complained that traditionalist Catholics, particularly in the United States, are “gagging” the church’s modernizing reforms and insisted that there was no turning back.
ROME (AP) — Pope Francis has blasted the “ferocity and cruelty” of Russian troops in Ukraine while praising the “heroism” and “courage” of Ukrainians to defend their land.
Francis made some of his most pointed comments about the war in a meeting with European editors of Jesuit journals last month, excerpts of which were published Tuesday in Italian dailies La Stampa and Avvenire.
ROME (AP) — Pope Francis canceled his participation in a religious procession this weekend due to ongoing knee pain, but said Monday he hoped to celebrate a special Mass for Italy's Congolese community after he had to postpone his planned visit to Africa.
PHOENIX (AP) — The next bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix said Friday that he will strive to be open when it comes to investigations of sex abuse, though he said he's not yet caught up on the status of abuse claims in a diocese that serves roughly 1.1 million Catholics.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis canceled a planned July trip to Africa on doctors' orders because of knee problems, the Vatican said Friday, dashing hopes of the faithful there and raising further questions about the health and mobility of the 85-year-old pontiff.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — The chairman of Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial said he thanked Pope Francis on Thursday for giving scholars access to the Holy See’s World War II-era archives.
Dani Dayan, who met with Francis at the Vatican, said the pontiff described the archives’ opening as “an issue of justice.” Francis visited the memorial during a 2014 pilgrimage in Israel.
ROME (AP) — Pope Francis added fuel to rumors about the future of his pontificate by announcing he would visit the central Italian city of L'Aquila in August for a feast initiated by Pope Celestine V, one of the few pontiffs who resigned before Pope Benedict XVI stepped down in 2013.
TORONTO (AP) — Indigenous leaders met with Canadian bishops on Wednesday and were told Pope Francis won't add more stops, as they requested, to his trip to Canada, where he will apologize in person for the abuse suffered by Indigenous people at the hands of the Catholic church.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican said Tuesday that Pope Francis will travel to Kazakhstan in September for an interfaith conference, a meeting that may give him a chance to meet with the head of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Bishop Robert McElroy of San Diego, one of Pope Francis' ideological allies who has often sparred with more conservative U.S. bishops, was named by the pope on Sunday as one of 21 new cardinals.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis named 21 new cardinals Sunday, most of them from continents other than Europe — which dominated Catholic hierarchy for most of the church's history — and further putting his mark on the group of people who might someday elect the next pontiff.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis, the archbishop of Canterbury and the leader of a the church of Scotland will together lead a prayer vigil for peace while visiting South Sudan next month, the Vatican said Saturday.
ROME (AP) — Cardinal Angelo Sodano, a once-powerful Italian prelate who long served as the Vatican’s No. 2 official but whose legacy was tarnished by his support for the pedophile founder of an influential religious order, has died.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — The new president of the Italian Conference of Bishops on Friday said he would launch an independent inquiry on sex abuse by Catholic clergy in Italy, but the announcement disappointed victims advocates because it will only go back 20 years.
ROME (AP) — Pope Francis has sent a protocol greeting to the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, assuring him of prayers on his patron's feast day and stressing the value of human life and wisdom, as the Vatican insists on maintaining cordial relations amid the war in Ukraine.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis on Tuesday named a bishop in his own image, Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, as the new head of the Italian bishops conference, as the Italian Catholic Church comes under mounting pressure to confront its legacy of clerical sexual abuse with an independent inquiry.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis on Sunday expressed his spiritual closeness to Catholics in China, voicing hope that the church there operates in “freedom and tranquility,’’ but making no mention of a 90-year-old cardinal who was recently arrested in Hong Kong.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — U2 frontman Bono hailed Pope Francis for promoting “inclusivity” on Thursday as he met with the pontiff in Rome alongside students attending an educational program launched by the pope.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — A Vatican cardinal testified Wednesday that Pope Francis himself ordered the ouster of the Holy See’s auditor-general, turning the tables on a scandal that had sparked questions about the Vatican’s commitment to financial transparency and accountability.
ROME (AP) — Doctors have prescribed a wheelchair, cane and physical therapy to help heal Pope Francis' bad knee. He has other ideas.
According to a viral video of the pope at the end of a recent audience, Francis quipped that what he really needs for the pain is a shot of tequila.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican’s foreign minister, Archbishop Paul Gallagher, is heading to Kyiv this week as the Holy See seeks to balance its concern for Ukrainians amid Russia's war with its efforts to keep open a channel of dialogue with Moscow.
ROME (AP) — Pope Francis created 10 new saints on Sunday, rallying from knee pain that has forced him to use a wheelchair to preside over the first canonization ceremony at the Vatican in over two years.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis, who has been using a wheelchair because of a bad knee, is going ahead with plans to visit Canada this summer so he can apologize in person for abuse suffered by Indigenous people at the hands of the Catholic church.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — The wives of two Ukrainian soldiers defending the Mariupol steel mill met with Pope Francis on Wednesday and begged him to intervene to arrange for a third-party evacuation of the troops before Russian soldiers capture or kill them.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Retired Associated Press photographer Nick Ut met Wednesday with Pope Francis and gave him a copy of his Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of a young Vietnamese girl running naked down the road after a napalm attack.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis’ willingness to work despite knee pain that has made walking nearly impossible shows other older adults that they have wisdom and experience to offer younger generations, a top Vatican cardinal said Tuesday.
BEIRUT (AP) — Pope Francis has postpone a planned visit to Lebanon next month due to health reasons, a Lebanese Cabinet minister said Monday.
Minister of Tourism Walid Nassar did not specify the ailment, but the pope is known to be suffering acute knee pain that has greatly curtailed his mobility in recent months.
ROME (AP) — Pope Francis on Saturday blasted Catholics who, hewing to old-school versions of liturgy like the Latin Mass, have made an ideological battleground of the issue, decrying what he described as devil-inspired divisiveness in the church.
ROME (AP) — Pope Francis, whose mobility has been limited of late by a nagging knee problem, is looking forward to visiting South Sudan in July, according to a joint message by the pontiff, the archbishop of Canterbury and a Scottish church official.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis authorized spending up to 1 million euros to free a Colombian nun kidnapped by al-Qaida-linked militants in Mali, a cardinal testified Thursday, revealing previously secret papal approval to hire a British security firm to find the nun and secure her freedom.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis has arrived at an audience in a wheelchair as his knee pain continues to limit his mobility.
Francis was wheeled into the meeting Thursday with nuns and religious superiors from around the world who are meeting in Rome.
ROME (AP) — Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Pope Francis vowed to work together to try to rid the world of nuclear weapons, the Vatican and Japanese officials said Wednesday as new nuclear threats worried Asia and Europe.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — His appeals for an Orthodox Easter truce in Ukraine went unheeded. His planned meeting with the head of the Russian Orthodox Church was canceled. A proposed visit to Moscow?