Tag Archives: Pope

The Vatican, in a highly unusual move, summoned both the U.S. and Israeli ambassadors to express the Holy See’s concern about Israel’s moves to extend its sovereignty to Jewish settlements and the Jordan Valley in the West Bank. A Vatican statement on Wednesday said meetings with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the …

On an eerie Good Friday in Jerusalem, a handful of Franciscan friars – some wearing face masks – commemorated Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection along a Via Dolorosa in lockdown and empty of pilgrims. They walked the Stations of the Cross to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the centrepiece of …

Pope Francis on Sunday appealed for peace in Sudan following a bloody crackdown by security forces on pro-democracy protesters in Khartoum last week. “The news coming from Sudan is giving rise to pain and concern. We pray for these people, so that the violence ceases and the common good is …

Call it fake news, or maybe just wishful thinking. A Thursday story claiming that Pope Francis had denied the existence of hell spread like, well, hellfire. In an alleged interview for Italian journal La Repubblica, the pope told atheist journalist Eugenio Scalfari that bad souls “are not punished” and that …

In a major shake-up of the Vatican’s administration on Saturday, Pope Francis replaced Catholicism’s top theologian, a conservative German cardinal who has been at odds with the pontiff’s vision of a more inclusive Church. A brief Vatican statement said Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Mueller’s five-year mandate as head of the Congregation …

Australian police charged a top adviser to Pope Francis with multiple historical sex crimes on Thursday, in a case that poses a dilemma for a pontiff who has vowed zero tolerance for such offences. Cardinal George Pell is the Vatican’s de facto treasury minister and is the highest-ranking Vatican official …

By Philip Pullella | VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis condemned a deadly blast at a church in Egypt and said at a Palm Sunday Mass that the world was suffering from wars, terrorism and “interests that are armed and ready to strike”. Francis, who has not made any direct public comment …

The Levant – – “There are wars, refugees who are escaping in this wave of migration away from wars,” Pope Francis on Saturday told reporters aboard the plane taking him from Rome to Havana to start his nine-day trip to Cuba and the United States. Pop described how he became emotional …

THE LEVANT EXCLUSIVE – Holy See spokesman Federico Lombardi confirmed this Saturday that Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi will meet with the Pope on Monday on what will be Egypt’s president first visit to the Vatican in eight years. The Vatican also confirmed that President al-Sisi will be accompanied  by …

THE LEVANT – Pope Francis has sought to encourage Iraq’s beleaguered Christians under threat from Islamic militants, saying they are the “heart” of the church and that the church is proud of them. In comments translated into Arabic during his weekly Wednesday general audience, Francis said the Catholic Church is like …