Pope Leo XIV is starting a six-week vacation this weekend at the papal summer retreat south of Rome.

Some conservatives and traditionalist Catholics are cautiously optimistic over the historic election of Pope Leo XIV.

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

Every pope has his critics.

Pope Francis understood the power of a simple touch.

Pope Francis has decided to take measures to punish Cardinal Raymond Burke, who is one of his highest-ranking critics.

Pope Francis is warning Kazakhstan’s bishops against fueling nostalgia for the past.

Pope Francis has harsh words for those who hew to old-school versions of liturgy, like the Latin Mass, saying they are sowing divisions among Catholics.

Pope Francis says he doesn't understand why people refuse to take COVID-19 vaccines.

A top-ranking Roman Catholic cardinal says he will soon begin rehabilitation after contracting COVID-19.

A Wisconsin shrine founded by a high-ranking Roman Catholic cardinal who has COVID-19 says he has been taken off a ventilator.

The Kentucky high court cleared the way for laws reining in Gov. Andy Beshear's emergency powers.

New Zealand’s first coronavirus outbreak in six months has grown to seven people.

One of the Catholic church's top officials and fiercest critics of Pope Francis has COVID-19 and is breathing through a ventilator.

New Zealand has detected its first community transmission of the coronavirus in months, triggering urgent meetings among top lawmakers.

The Council of State ruled that the Culture Ministry was correct in cancelling the concession it had given to the Dignitatis Humanae Institute, or Human Dignity Institute. The ruling overturned an earlier decision by a regional administrative tribunal that had sided with the institute. AdBannon had said he would bring in teachers and raise money for the academy, which had been dubbed a “gladiator school" for the alt-right. AdBannon said Tuesday the court decision was a politically motivated “joke" that was befitting of a developing country. Prosecutors in New York say the money instead went to pay a campaign official’s salary and personal expenses.

Pope Francis, right, greets bishops at the end of his weekly general audience in the Paul VI hall at the Vatican, Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2020. Pope Francis endorsed same-sex civil unions for the first time as pope while being interviewed for the feature-length documentary Francesco, which premiered Wednesday at the Rome Film Festival. A source in Mexico said the Vatican, which used its own cameras to shoot the interview and provided raw footage to Televisa afterward, had deleted the civil union quote in question. After the anecdote ends, the film cuts to Francis’ civil union comments in the Televisa interview. As pope, Francis had never come out publicly in favor of legal protections for civil unions, and no pontiff before him had, either.