Vatican City

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis said Wednesday that clergy who were "careerists" or "social climbers" were doing serious damage to the Catholic Church, his latest utterance aimed at instilling a sense of frugality and service in the Vatican and beyond. Francis, 76, the former Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, made the comments while addressing a gathering of superiors general of orders of nuns from around the world. "Men and women of the church who are careerists, social climbers, who use the...

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis is calling for renewal in the Catholic church as he wrapped up two days of mass gatherings in St. Peter's Square aimed at energizing the faithful. About 200,000 people turned out Sunday for Mass celebrated by Francis, about the same size crowd that came to a pep rally for Catholics that the pope led the night before in the square. Francis urged his church to be more welcoming and avoid closing in on itself. But he warned that faithful should avoid "dangerous parallel...

VATICAN CITY — Shunning the spacious papal apartment used by his predecessors, Pope Francis has chosen to continue living in the Vatican guesthouse where he has been staying since the beginning of the conclave. The Vatican's chief spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, explained on Tuesday (March 26) that Francis will live "until further notice" in a suite in the Santa Martha Residence, a modern Vatican guesthouse for priests and bishops who work in the Roman Curia or who are visiting the Vatican for...

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis lamented that investment losses by banks trigger more alarm in the economic crisis than the struggle of people to feed their families, as he led a huge rally Saturday to invigorate the church's moral conscience, hours after he held talks at the Vatican about the economic crisis with Germany's leader. Some 200,000 people, from Europe, Asia and the pope's native South America, filled St. Peter's Square and nearby streets to join Francis in hours of prayer, music...

VATICAN CITY — An Italian startup is launching a web advertising platform that aims to provide Catholic websites with Catholic-approved advertisements. The platform, called AdEthic, will be presented on Thursday (Sept. 20) at a press conference in Rome, as part of a wider Catholic project to engage in social media. According to Andrea Salvati, a manager at Google Italy who will take the role of CEO at AdEthic in October, the platform wants to tap into the vast Catholic online market that has so far been...

VATICAN CITY — Inside a vast hall in the Holy See on Saturday, Pope Francis was greeting a procession of well-wishers when a visually impaired radio journalist with a guide dog approached. Without skipping a beat, the new pontiff smiled, leaned over and blessed the golden retriever, eliciting surprised chuckles from the crowd. The moment captured the emerging story line of a papacy in the early stages of transformation by the first New World pope. As he eschews the trappings of his exalted office...

VATICAN CITY — After an early-morning jaunt outside the Vatican walls reinforced the first impression of him as an unpretentious pontiff, Pope Francis hinted Thursday that he might reign with little patience for scandal by preaching integrity to a college of cardinals that has been racked by intrigue. Amid reports about the machinations by which he was elected and anticipation about how he would govern a dysfunctional church court, Francis delivered a short but strong homily in plain Italian to the men...

VATICAN CITY — Inside the grand Tuscan colonnades of St. Peter's Square, a light drizzle fell on a Tuesday that seemed all too ordinary, given the momentous events a day earlier. Rowdy Chinese tour groups followed their guides' flags. A few long-frocked priests hurried to seminary classes. Among the sparse crowds, a cluster of Spanish kids in ripped T-shirts lazily munched on panini near the Vatican obelisk. But just as on Monday — when Pope Benedict XVI became the first pope in nearly 600 years to...

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis extended a hand to those who don't belong to any religion, urging them on Wednesday (March 20) to work with believers to build peace and protect the environment. In his first ecumenical meeting, the new pope greeted representatives from Christian churches and other religions, including Jewish and Muslim leaders, who had come to Rome to attend his inaugural Mass on Tuesday. Francis said that he intends to follow "on the path of ecumenical dialogue" set for the Roman...

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis has denounced the global financial system, blasting the "cult of money" that he says is tyrannizing the poor and turning humans into expendable consumer goods. In his first major speech on the subject, Francis demanded Thursday that financial and political leaders reform the global financial system to make it more ethical and concerned for the common good. He said: "Money has to serve, not to rule!" It's a message Francis delivered on many occasions...

Scottish cardinal to atone for sexual misconduct VATICAN CITY — The Vatican has ordered a disgraced Scottish cardinal to leave Scotland for several months to pray and atone for sexual misconduct, issuing a rare public sanction against a "prince of the church" and the first such punishment meted out by Pope Francis. Cardinal Keith O'Brien resigned as archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh and recused himself from the March conclave that elected Francis pope after a newspaper reported unnamed priests' allegations that he acted...

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican is getting back into its centuries-old tradition of arts patronage with its first-ever exhibit at the Venice Biennale, commissioning a biblically inspired show about creation, destruction and renewal for one of the world's most prestigious contemporary arts festivals. The Holy See on Tuesday unveiled details of its Venice pavilion, which marks the Vatican's most significant step yet in a renewed effort to engage contemporary artists and...

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican bank, long a source of secret and scandal for the Holy See, plans to publish its annual report online as part of its efforts to be more financially transparent. Vatican Radio said Tuesday that the bank president, Ernst von Freyburg, announced the plans to his staff Monday and said the bank would launch its own website this year. The moves come ahead of a July deadline for the Vatican to submit to a new evaluation by the Council of Europe's...

VATICAN CITY — For centuries, popes sponsored the work of artists such as Michelangelo, Raffaello or Bernini, who went on to create some of their masterpieces within the very walls of the Vatican. Yet over time, the marriage between art and faith grew stale — the Vatican's culture minister even called it a "divorce" — with the Roman Catholic Church finding itself estranged from the art world it did so much to create. Now, in a bid to revive its ancient tradition of arts patronage, the Holy See will...

Vice President Biden attended Tuesday's installation of Pope Francis at the Vatican. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi did, too, along with other lawmakers. But there was no U.S. ambassador in the crowd at St. Peter's Square. That post has been vacant since November, when Miguel Diaz, a theologian, left the job to teach at the University of Dayton. Some Catholic critics of the Obama administration see that empty chair as a symbol for the lack of engagement between Washington and Vatican City.

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis on Thursday (March 28) washed the feet of 12 young inmates, including two girls and two Muslims, during a Maundy Thursday Mass at a youth detention center in Rome. The Argentine pontiff, who has shown an eagerness to break with tradition in the two weeks since his election to the papacy on March 13, chose to celebrate the rite in the Casal del Marmo prison in northwest Rome, rather than in the traditional venue of the St. John Lateran Basilica. Francis has...

VATICAN CITY — Gains in Asia and Africa are making up for losses in Europe among the world's 1.2 billion Catholics, according to Vatican statistics released Monday (May 13), signaling a shift of the church's center of gravity toward the Global South that was heralded by the election of the first Latin American pope. Data published in the 2013 Statistical Yearbook of the Church also show that while the number of priests in the Americas and in Europe is declining compared to the overall Catholic population, those losses were...

VATICAN CITY — The number of Catholic priests in Africa and Asia has shot up over the past decade while decreasing in Europe, mirroring trends in the numbers of Catholic faithful that helped lead to the election of Pope Francis as the first non-European pope in over a millennium. The Vatican on Monday released statistics on the state of the Catholic Church in the world, showing a 39.5 percent increase in the number of priests in Africa and a 32...