Christopher White

Pope Francis will visit Cyprus and Greece next month, the Vatican confirmed on Nov. 5.

Pope Francis on appointed Franciscan Sister of the Eucharist Raffaella Petrini as the new secretary general of the Governorate of Vatican City State, making her the first woman to ever hold the post and now the highest ranking woman in the Vatican.  

Following a lengthy 55-minute meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican on Oct. 30, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi took to social media to announce he had invited the pontiff to visit India.

U.S. President Joe Biden says that Pope Francis told him he was a "good Catholic" and that he should keep receiving Communion during their Oct. 29 meeting at the Vatican.  

"It's good to be back," President Joe Biden said as he arrived at the Vatican, where he met privately with Pope Francis for about 75 minutes. The visit comes as U.S bishops prepare for a meeting in which they will review a document some say could deny Biden the Eucharist because of his support for legal abortion.

Pope Francis has agreed to visit Canada, at a date to be determined, following an invitation from Canada's Catholic Bishops in an effort to help the reconciliation process with Indigenous peoples.

Biden's visit to the Vatican will be only the second time in history that a sitting U.S. president who is Catholic has met with the pope. But the centuries-old Vatican diplomatic corps has such VIP meetings "down to a science."

We cannot be complacent," Jesuit Superior General Fr. Arturo Sosa repeated at the Oct. 14 inauguration of the Pontifical Gregorian University's Institute of Anthropology: Interdisciplinary Studies on Human Dignity and Care. The revamped organization was founded in 2012 as the Center for Child Protection.

Pope Francis will meet with U.S. President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden at the Vatican on Oct. 29, the White House confirmed on Oct. 14.

U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was not heckled while attending Mass in Rome on Oct. 9.

Pope Francis on Oct. 10 officially launched the Vatican's high-stakes, two-year synod process in an opening Mass where he urged the global Catholic church to master the "art of encounter."

Pope Francis on Oct. 9 met with U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

The synod on synodality has aspirations to reshape the Catholic Church's ability to engage its members and revitalize its mission as a participatory, listening church, after decades marred by clericalism and abuse.

The Rev. William Barber II, one of the United States' leading anti-poverty crusaders, took to a new pulpit this week at the Vatican to make his case for building a "moral movement for a moral economy."

Pope Francis has expressed his personal "shame" following the release of a devastating report into abuse in the Catholic Church in France

U.S. President Joe Biden should not be denied Communion, said Cardinal Peter Turkson, warning that the denial of the sacrament should only take place in "extreme cases."

At the General Assembly of the Vatican's Pontifical Academy for Life, the message could not have been clearer: Catholics need to get vaccinated for COVID-19 and help make it possible for others to do the same.

Pope Francis on Sept. 29 named Bishop Robert Brennan of Columbus, Ohio, as the new bishop of Brooklyn, New York.

Cardinal Wilton Gregory of Washington said he is "saddened" by the tensions in the U.S. church and sees it part of his job to bolster Pope Francis' ministry. 

Pope Francis has refused the resignation of Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki, the embattled archbishop of Cologne, Germany, and has instead granted him a six-month period of spiritual reflection following an investigation into his handling of clergy sexual abuse cases.