POPE FRANCIS

Pope Francis has asked aides to get to the bottom of how at least $17 million was transferred from the Vatican’s U.S.-based missionary fundraising coffers into an impact investing vehicle run by a priest.

Authorities on the European island nation of Malta have contested accusations made by a group of nongovernmental organizations a day earlier regarding a migrant boat in distress.

A Vatican cardinal on trial in the Holy See’s big financial crimes case has complained he can't properly defend himself because prosecutors have withheld key evidence.

The Vatican says Pope Francis canceled his meetings Friday because he was running a fever.

Pope Francis has tapped an Argentine bishop with years of ministry in the country’s prisons as his successor as archbishop of Buenos Aires.

The archbishop of Chicago is urging the Illinois attorney general to provide information about newly uncovered cases of priests who sexually abused minors that were included in a statewide investigative report.

Pope Francis’ peace envoy for Ukraine has blasted war as a “pandemic” and said all Christians are called to be peacemakers.

Pope Francis has sent one of his top sex crimes investigators to Bolivia at a time when the Andean nation is being shaken by an escalating pedophilia scandal involving priests.

The Vatican says Pope Francis has tasked a leading Italian cardinal with a mission it hopes it can “ease tensions" in the Ukraine war and lead to path of peace.

A car driven by someone with apparent psychiatric problems rushed one of the entrance gates of the Vatican.

The Vatican has recalled a postage stamp promoting this year’s World Youth Day in Portugal following complaints that it celebrated Portugal’s colonial empire and the nationalist dictatorship of Antonio Salazar.

Pope Francis' weekly general audience often gives ordinary people rare access to the pope.

The Vatican says that Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy will meet with Pope Francis during a trip to Rome.

A top Vatican cardinal is defending Pope Francis’ “drastic” leadership firings at the Holy See’s preeminent charity.

Pope Francis has joined Italy’s conservative premier in encouraging Italians to have more children after Italy registered a record low birth rate last year.

Pope Francis and the Orthodox Coptic pope have delivered a joint blessing from St. Peter’s Square.

Through more than 200 years of service, the Sisters of Charity of New York have nursed Civil War casualties, joined civil rights and anti-war demonstrations, cared for orphans, and taught countless children.

The recently ousted head of the Vatican's main charitable organization is breaking six months of silence to denounce his removal as a “brutal power grab.”.

Pope Francis is seeking to encourage his embattled child protection advisory board following weeks of turmoil and a shock resignation.

A Canadian lawyer who found his vocation caring for AIDS patients in Harlem has been elected the grand master of the Knights of Malta.

The Holy See’s No. 2 official has confirmed the existence of a Vatican peace “mission” to try to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Pope Francis says talks are underway to return artifacts in the Vatican Museum that were acquired from Indigenous peoples in Canada and has voiced a willingness to return other colonial-era objects in the Vatican’s collection on a case-by-case basis.

Pope Francis says a secret peace “mission” in Russia’s war in Ukraine is under way, though he gave no details, and that the Vatican is willing to help facilitate the return of Ukrainian children taken to Russia during the war.

Pope Francis has urged Hungarians to open their doors to others as he wrapped up a weekend visit with a plea for an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Pope Francis has plunged into both sides of Russia’s war with Ukraine.

Pope Francis has blasted the “adolescent belligerence” that brought war back to Europe and says the continent must recover its founding spirit of peaceful unity to confront Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Ukraine's prime minister says he has asked Pope Francis to help facilitate the return of Ukrainian children forcibly taken to Russia.

Pope Francis has decided to give women the right to vote at an upcoming meeting of bishops.

Pope Francis’ spiritual priorities will be on display during a trip to Hungary this week.

Pope Francis has publicly defended St. John Paul II, slamming as “offensive and baseless” what he called recent insinuations about the late pontiff.

Ukrainian authorities say weekend shelling by Russian forces killed at least seven civilians.

Pope Francis has invoked prayers for both the Ukrainian and Russian people in his Easter message.

Pope Francis is presiding over Easter vigil Mass at the Vatican.

Roman Catholics in Nicaragua have had to hold traditional “Stations of the Cross” and other Holy Week processions on church grounds or inside the churches amid a ban on public demonstrations.

From dressing as Roman soldiers in Antigua, Guatemala, to carrying palm fronds on the streets of Lagos, Nigeria, Christians around the world are celebrating Holy Week.

Pope Francis, hospitalized recently with bronchitis, has skipped the traditional Good Friday nighttime procession at the Colosseum because of chilly weather in Rome.

Pope Francis has washed and dried the feet of 12 residents of a Rome juvenile prison in a Holy Thursday rite symbolizing humility.

Pope Francis has presided over his first ceremony in St. Peter's Square following a three-day hospitalization for bronchitis.

Pope Francis has been discharged from the Rome hospital where he was treated for bronchitis.

The Vatican says that Pope Francis is expected to be discharged on Saturday from the Rome hospital where he is being treated for bronchitis.

Responding to Indigenous demands, the Vatican has formally repudiated the “Doctrine of Discovery” -- papal documents from the 15th century that legitimized the colonial-era seizure of Native lands.

The Vatican has formally repudiated the “Doctrine of Discovery.”.

Pope Francis has shown a “marked improvement” after being given intravenous antibiotics for a bronchitis infection and could be released from the hospital in the coming days, the Vatican and his doctors say.

Hundreds of people have gathered at a candlelight vigil to mourn the three children and three adults slain in a school shooting in Nashville, Tennessee.

A founding member of Pope Francis’ child protection advisory board has resigned.

The Vatican says Pope Francis will be hospitalized for several days for treatment of a pulmonary infection after experiencing difficulty breathing in recent days.

An internationally lauded federation that provides community care for people with intellectual disabilities is grappling with revelations that its late founder perverted Catholic doctrine to justify his sexual abuse of women.

Pope Francis has updated a 2019 church law aimed at holding senior churchmen accountable for covering up cases of sex abuse.

Poland's president has taken part in nationwide observances Friday to honor Poles who risked — and often lost — their lives trying to save Jews from the Holocaust during the Nazi German occupation of Poland.

The longtime secretary to Pope Benedict XVI has acknowledged that his tell-all memoir has been criticized for casting Pope Francis in an unfavorable light.

Pope Francis is seeking to promote legal migration routes to Europe as an alternative to smuggling operations that he says have turned the Mediterranean into a “cemetery.”.

The Vatican has closed its embassy in Nicaragua after the country's government proposed suspending diplomatic relations.

The Vatican Museums has officially reopened its African and American ethnographic collections by showcasing intricately restored Rwandan raffia screens.

The references seem endless, and they can come from anywhere.

Pope Francis is marking the 10th anniversary of his election as pope on Monday.

Nicaragua ’s government says it has proposed suspending relations with the Vatican days after Pope Francis compared President Daniel Ortega’s administration to a communist or Nazi dictatorship amid a crackdown on the Catholic Church in the country.

When Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina became Pope Francis, much of his home country celebrated as if it had just won a soccer World Cup championship.

Pope Francis is celebrating the 10th anniversary of his election Monday, far outpacing the “two or three” years he once envisioned for his papacy.

Pope Francis will visit Hungary at the end of April.

Pope Francis has a bad cold and is skipping speeches he was set to deliver.

Prosecutors have charged a man with killing a Catholic bishop in a crime that stunned Los Angeles religious and immigrant communities.

Pope Francis has intervened for the third time to crack down on the celebration of the old Latin Mass, a sign of continued friction with Catholic traditionalists.

A new complex erected on the shores of the Persian Gulf, in the capital of the United Arab Emirates, houses a Catholic church, a Jewish synagogue and an Islamic mosque.

Pope Francis’ Jesuit religious order is taking new measures against a prominent Jesuit artist after 15 more people came forward with fresh accusations of spiritual, sexual and psychological abuse.

Authorities say a man has been arrested in the weekend killing of a Catholic auxiliary bishop that shocked Los Angeles religious and immigrant communities.

Authorities say a Catholic bishop in Southern California has been shot and killed just blocks from a church, stunning the Los Angeles religious community.

Pope Francis on Sunday expressed sadness and worry at the news that Roman Catholic Bishop Rolando Álvarez, an outspoken critic of the Nicaraguan government, had been sentenced to 26 years in prison in the latest move against the Catholic Church and government opponents.

Retired Pope Benedict XVI’s second secretary has come out with a new memoir.

Pope Francis has been backed by the ceremonial head of the Anglican Communion and top Presbyterian minister in calling for gays to be welcomed by their churches as he again decried laws that criminalize homosexuality as unjust.

Pope Francis has made a final appeal for peace in South Sudan.

Pope Francis says South Sudan's future depends on how it treats its women.

Pope Francis is warning South Sudan’s political leaders that history will judge them harshly if they continue to drag their feet implementing a 2018 peace accord.

Pope Francis has led Congo’s young people in a rousing denunciation of political corruption.

Mourners at the Sydney funeral for Australian Cardinal George Pell have remembered him as a victim of a campaign to punish him regardless of his guilt.

Local climate activists in Congo are hoping Pope Francis’ visit will help spur action to protect the country’s rainforest from oil and gas interests.

On his trip to Congo, Pope Francis has heard first-hand accounts of atrocities some people have endured during years of fighting in the eastern part of the country.

Pope Francis is demanding that foreign powers stop plundering Africa’s natural resources.

Pope Francis’ long-awaited visit to Congo and South Sudan next week comes amid soaring insecurity in both war-torn countries, as desperate populations say they want his visit to quell the endless violence and bring stability and attention to two of the world’s most neglected crises.

Pope Francis has clarified his comments about homosexuality and sin.

When Pope Francis arrives in Congo and South Sudan next week, thousands of people will take special note of a gesture more grounded than the sign of the cross.

Pope Francis says there's a risk that a reform process in the German church could become “ideological."

Pope Francis is lamenting that the use of guns by civilians to defend themselves is becoming a “habit.”.

Pope Francis says he hasn’t even considered issuing norms to regulate future papal resignations.

Pope Francis has criticized laws that criminalize homosexuality as “unjust,” saying God loves all his children just as they are.

The archbishop of Austria has confirmed that it was he who wrote a letter to the future Pope Benedict XVI urging him to accept election as pontiff in 2005 if the votes went his way.

The Australian cardinal who decried the papacy of Pope Francis as a “catastrophe” is receiving tributes including from the pontiff himself at his funeral in St. Peter's Basilica.

Pope Francis will deliver a final send-off for Cardinal George Pell during a funeral Mass on Saturday.

Pope Francis has paid tribute to Cardinal George Pell, after his death in Rome.

Cardinal George Pell, a onetime financial adviser to Pope Francis who had sex abuse convictions overturned, has died.

Pope Francis has met with Archbishop Georg Gaenswein, the longtime secretary of Pope Benedict XVI.

Pope Francis has broken his silence on the nationwide protests convulsing Iran.

The Vatican is allowing the public to visit the new tomb of Pope Benedict XVI under St. Peter's Basilica.

Mark Seitz of El Paso is the first bishop from a state along the Mexico border to head the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ migration committee in at least 20 years.

A Vatican cardinal has sprinkled blessed water on the simple wooden coffin of Benedict XVI and released incense around it, near the end of the funeral in St. Peter’s Square.

Pope Francis joined tens of thousands of faithful in bidding farewell to Benedict XVI at a rare requiem Mass for a dead pope presided over by a living one.

The attendance of both the former bishop of Hong Kong and an adviser to Taiwan’s leader at this week’s funeral for Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI highlights the Vatican’s uneasy relationship with communist-ruled China.

Cardinal Gerhard Mueller could be seen as the intellectual heir of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.

Pope Benedict XVI held one of the world’s highest—profile positions but once expressed a desire to be “hidden to the world.”.

Many of the conservative prelates who dominate the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops were appointed by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.

Pope Francis has praised Pope Emeritus’ Benedict XVI’s “acute and gentle thought” on the final day of public viewing of his body in St. Peter’s Basilica before his funeral.