Some conservatives and traditionalist Catholics are cautiously optimistic over the historic election of Pope Leo XIV, hopeful he will return doctrinal rigor to the papacy, even as progressives sense he will continue Pope Francis’ reformist agenda.

The new pope, Leo XIV, is scheduled to deliver his first such prayer on Sunday from the loggia where he first appeared in public after being elected three days ago.

Cardinals are meeting in a secret, sacred conclave for a second day as they seek a new pontiff to follow Pope Francis.

A change in popes is a complicated process.

The United States is the home country of 10 of the 133 cardinals eligible to vote for the next pope of the Catholic Church.

Cardinals have wrapped up their pre-conclave meetings before they enter the conclave to elect a new pope.

All Vatican personnel involved in supporting the upcoming papal conclave must take an oath of secrecy — under penalty of automatic excommunication.

At Masses across Rome and socioeconomic lines, Catholics prayed the next pope focuses on poverty and peace days before the conclave that will elect Pope Francis’ successor.

While Pope Francis accomplished a lot in his 12-year papacy, he left much unfinished business and many challenges for his successor — from the Vatican’s disastrous finances to the wars raging on multiple continents.

President Donald Trump has posted an artificial intelligence-generated image of himself dressed as pope.

British Cardinal Vincent Nichols provides an insider's view of what's going on these days before the conclave to elect a successor to Pope Francis.

The month of April saw the death of history’s first Latin American pope.

“Conclave” the film may have introduced moviegoers to the spectacular ritual and drama of a modern conclave, but the periodic voting to elect a new pope has been going on for centuries and created a whole genre of historical trivia.

If the next pope is from sub-Saharan Africa, he would be the first in Catholic Church history.

The conclave that begins Wednesday to elect a successor for Pope Francis is the first in 46 ½ years for which the Vatican hasn't ordered a new cassock for the new head of the Catholic Church.

There are no official candidates for the papacy, but some cardinals are considered “papabile.”.

The Italian cardinal at the heart of the Vatican’s “trial of the century” announced Tuesday he was withdrawing from participating in the upcoming conclave to elect a new pope.

Cardinals have decided the conclave to elect a successor to Pope Francis will begin May 7.

The Vatican says the conclave to elect a successor to Pope Francis will begin on May 7.

Cardinals this week will start in-depth discussions on planning the conclave to choose Pope Francis' successor.

Hong Kong’s outspoken Roman Catholic Cardinal Joseph Zen has been allowed to leave the southern Chinese city to attend Pope Francis’ funeral in Vatican City.

Pope Francis had a learning curve on clergy sexual abuse, with the turning point coming in 2018.

Pope Francis never set foot in his native Argentina during his papacy.

In his landmark 2015 encyclical “Praised Be,” Pope Francis cast care for the planet as an urgent and existential moral concern.

Every pope has his critics.

Pope Francis understood the power of a simple touch.

Even though cardinals don’t campaign for the job, there are always front-runners going into a conclave to choose the next pope.

Pope Francis died on Easter Monday at the age of 88 after suffering a stroke, setting off mourning in the Catholic world and days of ritual at the Vatican.

The death of a pope triggers a centuries-old ritual to elect a new one.

Pope Francis had an informal, lighthearted speaking style.

Pope Francis was the first pope from the Americas, the first Jesuit pontiff and the first to take the name of Francis, after St. Francis of Assisi.

Pope Francis changed the Catholic Church’s teaching in areas such as the death penalty and nuclear weapons.

The first pope from the Americas was born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Dec. 17, 1936.

Disgraced former Catholic Cardinal Theodore McCarrick has died.

Pope Francis has written and spoken at length about sickness, aging and death.

Pope Francis has entered his fourth week in the hospital with double pneumonia, increasingly handing off his day-to-day duties to cardinals as questions swirl about the near and long-term future of his papacy.

“Conclave” author Robert Harris isn’t staying up to watch the Oscars.

The Vatican has detailed laws and rituals to ensure the transfer of power when a pope dies or resigns, but not when he is sick.

Pope Francis’ medical team says the pontiff's condition isn’t life-threatening.

The pope looms so large in everyday Italian life that there are lots of expressions that make light of even a dark event like his death.

A traditionalist Catholic bishop whose denial of the Holocaust created a scandal when Pope Benedict XVI rehabilitated him has died.

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

Pope Francis has exposed the political “maneuvers” used to sway votes during the two most recent elections of popes in a book-length interview.

Five years ago this week, Pope Francis convened an unprecedented summit of bishops from around the world to impress on them that clergy abuse was a global problem and that they needed to do something about it.

The Vatican next year will publish a collection of never-before-seen homilies delivered by the late Pope Benedict XVI.

Pope Francis is marking a birthday.

Clergy sexual abuse survivors have unveiled a proposed new church law calling for the permanent removal of abusive priests and superiors who covered for them.

Pope Francis has blasted the “backwardness” of some conservatives in the U.S. Catholic Church.

Madeleine McCann was nearly 4 when she vanished in 2007 while her British family was on vacation in the town of Praia da Luz in the Algarve resort region of Portugal.

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 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.

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

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

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.

Longtime Associated Press Vatican correspondent Victor L.

Archbishop Chrysostomos II, the outspoken leader of Cyprus’ Greek Orthodox Christian Church whose forays into the country’s complex politics and finances fired up supporters and detractors alike, has died.

Pope Francis has wrapped up two days of closed-door meetings with about 180 cardinals including the newest ones.

Pope Francis has praised the humility of a 13th-century pontiff who resigned, during a visit to a quake-ravaged Italian mountain town.

Zofia Posmysz, a Polish World War II-era resistance fighter who survived the Auschwitz and Ravensbrück concentration camps and who later became a journalist and novelist, has died at 98.

The Canadian government says Pope Francis’ apology to Indigenous peoples for abuses they suffered in the country’s church-run residential schools didn’t go far enough.

Pope Francis plans to apologize to Indigenous groups on Canadian soil for harms inflicted at church-run residential schools.

Indigenous Canadians are voicing a range of skepticism, wariness and hope as Pope Francis prepares to arrive in their country next week.

Pope Francis says he wouldn't live in the Vatican or return to his native Argentina if and when he ever retires.

Pope Francis has dismissed rumors he plans to resign anytime soon and that he hopes to visit Moscow and Kyiv after travelling to Canada later this month.

Pope Francis is urging the Catholic faithful to stop exploiting the old Latin Mass for ideological reasons.

Pope Francis has taken another step to reign in and regulate new religious groups in the Catholic Church.

Pope Francis has added fuel to rumors about the future of his pontificate.

The 90-year-old retired Hong Kong archbishop who was arrested by Hong Kong police on national security charges has long been a fiery critic of Beijing and the Vatican's efforts to reach a working arrangement with the ruling Communists.

A Lebanese Cabinet minister says Pope Francis may postpone a planned visit to Lebanon next month due to health reasons.

A Vatican investigation into allegations that St. John Paul II’s longtime top aide was negligent in handling sex abuse claims in his native Poland has cleared him of wrongdoing.

Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI turned 95 this past weekend.

Pope Francis has welcomed a First Nations delegation to the Vatican.

In 2009, Pope Benedict XVI met with a First Nations delegation from Canada and privately expressed regret over abuse suffered by Indigenous children at church-run boarding schools.

Pope Francis has presided over a special prayer for peace in Ukraine that harks back to a century-old apocalyptic prophecy about peace and Russia.

Spain's Roman Catholic bishops have asked a private law firm to investigate past and present sexual abuse committed by clergy, members of religious orders and others associated with the church.

The Vatican this week is hosting a three-day symposium on the Catholic priesthood amid renewed public attention on clergy sex abuse scandals and fresh research into the abuses of priestly power.

A report on decades of sexual abuse in Germany that shone an unflattering spotlight on retired Pope Benedict XVI has come on top of already strong pressure in Germany to reconsider Catholic rules on issues including homosexuality and women’s roles.

Retired Pope Benedict XVI is asking forgiveness for any “grievous faults” in his handling of clergy sex abuse cases.

The Vatican is strongly defending Pope Benedict XVI’s record in fighting clergy sexual abuse after an independent report faulted his handling of four cases of abuse when he was archbishop of Munich, Germany.

Pope Francis is vowing to provide justice to victims of clergy sexual abuse after an independent audit faulted retired Pope Benedict XVI for having botched four cases of abuse when he was archbishop of Munich, Germany.

A long-awaited report on sexual abuse in Germany’s Munich diocese has faulted retired Pope Benedict XVI’s handling of cases when he was archbishop in the 1970s and 1980s.

The Vatican press office says that Cardinal Pietro Parolin and Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra have both tested positive for the coronavirus.

Pope Francis is now speaking about getting the coronavirus vaccination as a “moral obligation.”.

Pope Francis is celebrating Christmas Eve Mass before an estimated 2,000 people in St. Peter’s Basilica.

Pope Francis is doubling down on his efforts to quash the old Latin Mass.

Pope Francis is celebrating his 85th birthday.

Women aspiring to leadership in the Catholic church have long come to terms with the glass ceiling that exists in the male-dominated institution.

They both carved out sterling reputations as military and political leaders over years of public service.

Fernando González, the head of Caribbean newsgathering for The Associated Press, has died in Havana.

Traditionalist Catholics have descended on Rome for their annual pilgrimage.

When President Joe Biden meets with Pope Francis on Friday, he won’t kiss the ring.

President Joe Biden says Pope Francis told him he's a “good Catholic” and should keep taking Communion when the world's two most prominent Roman Catholics met at the Vatican on Friday.

Retired Pope Benedict XVI has said he hopes to soon join a beloved professor friend in “the afterlife.”.

Pope Francis has acknowledged his increasingly vocal right-wing critics.

Pope Francis is urging European bishops to listen to survivors of clergy sexual abuse and consider them partners in reforming the Catholic Church.

Pope Francis has cracked down on the celebration of the old Latin Mass by reversing one of Pope Benedict XVI’s signature decisions.

The Vatican has detailed laws, rituals and roles to ensure the transfer of power when a pope dies or resigns.

Pope Francis has agreed to meet in December with Indigenous survivors of Canada’s notorious residential schools.

Pope Francis has offered an affectionate, public thank-you to Benedict XVI, whose retirement from the papacy in 2103 shocked the world.