Pope Francis in his traditional Christmas message has urged “all people of all nations” to find courage during this Holy Year “to silence the sounds of arms and overcome divisions” plaguing the world, from the Holy Land to Ukraine, Africa to Asia.

Pope Francis has opened the great Holy Door of St. Peter's Basilica.

Pope Francis is formally inaugurating the 2025 Holy Year, reviving an ancient church tradition encouraging the faithful to make pilgrimages to Rome.

Pope Francis is suffering from a cold and will deliver his Sunday blessing from indoors.

Less than 1% of nuns in the United States today are 30 or younger.

When Pope Francis formally opens the Holy Year next week, he will launch a dizzying 12-month calendar of events that include special Jubilee Masses for the faithful from all walks of life.

President Joe Biden will travel to Italy next month to meet with Pope Francis and top Italian officials for what is expected to be the final international trip of his presidency.

Pope Francis on the first papal visit ever to the French island of Corsica on Sunday called for a dynamic form of laicism, promoting the kind of popular piety that distinguishes the Mediterranean island from secular France as a bridge between religious and civic society.

One of the Vatican's Nativity scenes raised eyebrows when it was unveiled because it featured a keffiyeh, the Palestinian headscarf.

Pope Francis has installed 21 new cardinals, many of whom are key figures in his reform agenda.

Colombia hosts the largest population of migrants and refugees from Venezuela, where more than 7.7 million have left since 2014 for economic, political and safety reasons.

Roman Catholic faithful will be able to view St. Peter’s tomb via a webcam as part of the Vatican’s upcoming Holy Year.

Pope Francis is warning that the Vatican's troubled pension fund faces a “serious imbalance” and cannot guarantee future obligations without “urgent structural” reforms.

Pope Francis has revised the funeral rites that will be used when he dies.

Pope Francis will make late teen Carlo Acutis the Catholic Church’s first millennial and digital saint next year.

Survivors of clergy sexual abuse are urging the Vatican to adopt the same zero-tolerance policy that it approved for the U.S. Catholic Church in 2002.

Pope Francis has called for an investigation to determine if Israel’s attacks in Gaza constitute genocide.

Pope Francis is asking the diocese of Rome to help alleviate a growing housing crisis in the Eternal City.

A delegation of former hostages held by Hamas in Gaza and their relatives have met with Pope Francis.

Several U.S. Catholic bishops on Wednesday encouraged the church to boldly share Vatican teachings on a range of hot-button issues, including the condemnation of abortion, euthanasia, surrogacy and gender-affirming surgery.

As U.S. Catholic bishops gather for their annual fall meeting this week in Baltimore, the specter of President-elect Donald Trump’s resounding victory hangs over the proceedings.

A digital twin of St. Peter’s Basilica has been created using artificial intelligence to explore one of the world’s most important monument’s.

The New Orleans Saints may be one of the worst teams in the NFL this season.

Christians in many countries around the world are celebrating All Saints’ Day, a somber and spiritual day in the church’s liturgical calendar that shares pagan roots with Halloween.

Pope Francis’ child protection board has issued its first-ever global assessment of the Catholic Church's efforts to address the clergy sex abuse crisis.

With Pope Francis a few weeks away from his 88th birthday, the plotting for his successor is well underway at the Vatican.

Pope Francis’ yearslong process to reform the Catholic Church has ended with recommendations that fall far short of giving women more equity as hoped.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says it’s important that allies’ aid to Ukraine doesn’t decrease next year.

Pope Francis has named 21 new cardinals.

Pope Francis' big Catholic reform project has opened with widespread calls for women to take up more positions of responsibility in the church topping the agenda.

Pope Francis has doubled down on his traditional views on abortion and women during his in-flight news conference coming home from Belgium.

Pope Francis has met with 17 survivors of clergy sexual abuse in Belgium.

An unholy argument over a hymn has struck a discordant note in the preparations for the main event of Pope Francis' trip to Belgium.

Pope Francis is still widely popular in several Latin American countries.

Pope Francis is urging Europe to be beacon of peace amid war and a welcome home for migrants.

Pope Francis has taken the unusual decision to expel 10 people from a troubled Catholic movement in Peru after a Vatican investigation uncovered “sadistic” abuses of power, authority and spirituality.

Pope Francis is traveling to Belgium this week, where he is in for a sober welcome.

Pope Francis will be visiting Belgium on a trip starting Thursday, facing a flock ravaged by countless scandals of priest sexual abuse and dwindling in the face of modernity, where women and gays insist on an equal role and rights.

The Vatican has confirmed that plans remain in place for Pope Francis to go to Belgium and Luxembourg.

An estimated 180,000 motorcyclists gathered at Our Lady of Fatima shrine in central Portugal on Sunday for the ninth annual Pilgrimage of the Blessing of Helmets.

The Vatican has given the green light for Catholics to continue flocking to a southern Bosnian village where children reported seeing visions of the Virgin Mary.

Pope Francis' longest and farthest trip has proven that despite his age, ailments and eight hours of jet lag, Pope Francis can still pull off an ambitious trip to Asia.

Mexico’s Catholic Church has a new addition to its ranks of “blessed,” with the beatification of the Rev. Moisés Lira.

Flying back to Rome from a lengthy trip to Asia, Pope Francis criticized both U.S. presidential candidates for what he called anti-life policies on abortion and migration.

Pope Francis has offered extensive praise for China at the end of a trip through Asia.

Pope Francis has strongly criticized both U.S. presidential candidates over what he calls anti-life policies on abortion and migration.

Pope Francis is concluding his visit to Singapore by praising its tradition of interfaith harmony.

Pope Francis has praised Singapore’s economic development as a testament to human ingenuity.

Pope Francis is heading to Singapore for the final leg of his Asian trip.

The estimated crowd of 600,000 people Pope Francis' Mass in East Timor is nearly half of the small Southeast Asian country's population.

When Pope Francis arrives Wednesday in Asia’s financial powerhouse Singapore for the last leg of a four-nation tour, he is expected to bring his message of unity and hope to one of the world’s richest nations.

The Vatican says some 600,000 people have attended Pope Francis’ Mass in East Timor, or nearly half the country’s population.

The top leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is celebrating a milestone birthday, his 100th.

Leaders of worldwide religions commonly stay at the helm well past retirement age, but it’s not often you find centenarians overseeing major faiths.

Pope Francis has indirectly acknowledged the abuse scandal in East Timor involving its bishop and Nobel Peace Prize-winning independence hero.

East Timor pulled out all stops for Pope Francis’ historic visit to one of the world’s youngest and poorest countries to the tune of $12 million, drawing rebuke from activists and human rights organizations.

Pope Francis has arrived in the remote jungles of Papua New Guinea.

Pope Francis has called for the Catholic Church in Papua New Guinea to be particularly close to women who have been abused and marginalized.

Pope Francis’s visit to Papua New Guinea will take him to a remote part of the South Pacific island nation where Christianity is a recent addition to traditional spiritual beliefs developed over millenia that remain deeply ingrained.

Pope Francis has arrived in Papua New Guinea for the second leg of his four-nation trip through Southeast Asia and Oceania.

Pope Francis is wrapping up his visit to Indonesia after celebrating Mass before an overflow crowd of 100,000.

Pope Francis has joined the grand imam of Southeast Asia’s largest mosque in pledging to work together to fight religiously inspired violence and protect the planet.

The president of East Timor sees Pope Francis’ upcoming visit as a prime opportunity to promote Asia’s youngest country on the world stage, not a time to confront the legacy of abuse by influential members of the clergy in the deeply Catholic nation.

Pope Francis has urged Indonesia to live up to its promise of “harmony in diversity” and fight religious intolerance.

Pope Francis has urged Indonesia to live up to its promise of “harmony in diversity” and fight religious intolerance.

Pope Francis is making the longest, farthest and most challenging trip of his pontificate when he goes to Asia and Oceania this week.

When Pope Francis makes his trip to Asia's youngest country, East Timor, it will make him the second pope to visit after John Paul in 1989, and the first since the country gained independence from Indonesia in 2002.

When the Vatican acknowledged in 2022 that the Nobel Peace Prize-winning, East Timorese independence hero Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo had sexually abused young boys, it appeared that the global clergy sexual abuse scandal that has compromised the Catholic Church’s credibility around the world had finally arrived in Asia’s newest country.

When Pope Francis begins his Asia tour next week, one of his early stops will be at Indonesia’s iconic Istiqlal mosque.

Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Cardinal Seán O’Malley as archbishop of Boston and named the current bishop of Providence, Rhode Island, Richard Henning, to replace him as leader of one of the most important Catholic archdioceses in the United States.

Voices across the globe are expressing concern over the growing number of arrests in Venezuela following last weekend's disputed elections.

A Texas church has not one — but two — members aboard the International Space Station.

Up to 3,000 Salvadoran Catholics will participate in Saint Óscar Romero's pilgrimage, an annual event that kicks off in El Salvador each Aug. 1 to honor San Salvador’s archbishop, who was appointed saint by pope Francis in 2018.

The congregation at St. Joseph Apache Mission in the Mescalero Reservation in New Mexico, is struggling to deal with the hurt caused by their priest removing a cherished painting called the Apache Christ, which portrays Jesus as an Indigenous holy man.

The Knights of Columbus, the world’s largest Catholic fraternal group, has covered up defining features of the mosaics in its Washington D.

Pope Francis has voiced his hope that the Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games will provide an opportunity for countries at war to respect an ancient Greek tradition and establish a truce for the duration of the Games.

Catholics from across the U.S. have converged for five days of traditional devotions at the Indianapolis Colts’ football stadium in what they’re calling the National Eucharistic Congress.

The Vatican says its doctrine office will be preparing a document on women in leadership roles in the Catholic Church, as part of a new initiative to respond to longstanding demands by women to have a greater say in the church's life.

The Vatican’s chief prosecutor has strongly defended the integrity and fairness of the city state’s justice system.

The Vatican has excommunicated its former ambassador to the United States after finding him guilty of schism.

The pope's top adviser on fighting sex abuse is urging Vatican offices to stop displaying artwork by an ex-Jesuit artist.

Pope Francis has decreed that an area of northern Rome long used by Vatican Radio will now house a field of solar panels to fuel Vatican City.

Before flying to Italy’s southern Puglia region to meet world leaders at the Group of Seven summit, Pope Francis hosted a very different audience at the Vatican celebrating the importance of humor.

Pope Francis has challenged leaders of the world’s wealthy democracies to keep human dignity foremost in developing and using artificial intelligence.

A summit of the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations has opened in Italy.

A top Vatican cardinal has urged European voters to remember their own migratory roots in showing sympathy to people forced to flee their homes.

Pope Francis’ apology for using a vulgar term to refer to gay men was the latest comment to make headlines about the Catholic Church’s teachings on homosexuality.

Pope Francis has apologized after he was quoted using a vulgar term about gay men to reaffirm the Catholic Church’s ban on gay priests.

The Vatican has revised how it evaluates purported supernatural events, such as reported visions of the Virgin Mary, to guard against hoaxes and account for news going viral.

The Vatican has radically reformed its process for evaluating alleged visions of the Virgin Mary, weeping statues and other seemingly supernatural phenomena.

Forty-nine employees of the Vatican Museums have filed a class-action complaint with the Vatican administration demanding better seniority, leave and overtime benefits.

The Vatican has crossed a key milestone in the runup to its 2025 Jubilee with the promulgation of the official decree establishing the Holy Year.

Pope Francis has met with women prisoners in Venice who are the protagonists of the Vatican pavilion at the Venice Biennale art fair.

Tech giant Cisco Systems has joined Microsoft and IBM in signing onto a Vatican-sponsored pledge to ensure artificial intelligence is developed and used ethically.

Elevated by Pope Francis to the top hierarchy of the Catholic Church, Cardinal Álvaro Ramazzini has kept up his unflinching focus on the poor, the Indigenous and the migrant in Central America.

The Holy See has formally protested to France after a court there ruled that a former high-ranking Vatican official was liable for what the court determined to be the wrongful dismissal of a nun from a religious order.

The Vatican says Pope Francis will visit Indonesia, East Timor, Papua New Guinea and Singapore in September.

The Vatican has issued a new document rejecting the concept of changing one’s biological sex.

Pope Francis has met with relatives of hostages taken by Hamas on Oct. 7.

Transgender Catholics are voicing disappointment with a new Vatican document rejecting the fundamental concept of changing one’s biological sex.