Pope Francis has revamped the Vatican criminal code, extending it to apply to employees of the Holy See anywhere in the world. The revised code includes provisions covering the theft and publication of confidential documents and money-laundering, and provides for the freezing of financial assets. It also strengthens provisions against child abuse, specifying that Vatican Read more
It began when the Pope paid his bill. The day after Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was named the leader of the world’s billion Catholics, he asked his driver to go back to the hotel in the Vatican where he’d been staying during the Congress of Cardinals, to pay his bill. The payment was completely symbolic Read more
It was a shipwreck of African migrants off the coast of Lampedusa, a small island in the Mediterranean, that spurred Pope Francis into action. In the past 18 months more than 500 people have died, or gone missing at sea, trying to escape Africa. The world barely noticed. Standing on Lampedusa on Monday, Francis prayed Read more
The Italian edition of the pop-culture magazine Vanity Fair has declared Pope Francis its Man of the Year — with the backing of openly gay English singer-songwriter Sir Elton John. The magazine features the Pope on the cover of its latest issue and says he has done enough in his first 100 days in office Read more
In the first pastoral trip of his pontificate, Pope Francis travelled to a refugee centre in southern Italy and issued a heartfelt appeal against the “globalisation of indifference” towards migrants. The Pope said he decided to visit Lampedusa, a small island with a population of 6000 and just 70 miles from Tunisia, after seeing newspaper Read more
Pope Francis has asked for a statue of himself at his old cathedral to be removed — and advised seminarians and novices to get around on bikes and avoid sleek cars and smartphones. The statue, a lifesize likeness of the Pope, had been installed for about 10 days in the gardens of the Buenos Aires Read more
Taking a leaf out of Pope Francis’s book, the new head of the Chaldean Catholic Church has rebuked priests who do not focus on the spiritual care of their people. In a pastoral letter from his patriarchal see in Baghdad, Patriarch Louis Raphael I Sako warned that some priests “have turned their parishes in little Read more
A pillar was lacking in Benedict XVI’s trilogy on the theological virtues. Providence willed that this missing pillar should be both a gift from the Pope Emeritus to his successor and a symbol of unity. For in taking up and completing the work begun by his predecessor, Pope Francis bears witness with him to the Read more
Oscar Romero, now back on the path to sainthood, was called to conversion by ordinary Salvadorans. Among the welcome news coming on the heels of Pope Francis’ election was an April announcement that the canonization cause of Archbishop Óscar Romero of El Salvador has been, in the words of Italian Msgr. Vincenzo Paglia, who leads Read more
Pope Francis has made a significant change to the norms governing the personal ordinariates established to encourage Anglicans to enter into communion with the Catholic Church. A baptised Catholic who has not completed the sacraments of initiation, but returns to the faith and practice of the Church through being evangelised by an ordinariate may now Read more