Argentinian Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected as Pope Francis on March 13, 2013. He is the first Latin American pope, the first Jesuit pope, and the first non-European pope in more than a millennium. Find reporting and commentary on Pope Francis here, along with continuing coverage at the Vatican in the wake of Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation in February 2013.
VATICAN CITY (RNS) While some church observers worry that Benedict XVI could overshadow Pope Francis and his course of reforms, one veteran commentator said the side-by-side popes shouldn’t cause a “crisis in the church.”
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Benedict XVI’s return to Vatican City will present church leaders with the unprecedented situation of a reigning pope and a retired pope living a short distance from each other, both sharing the same top aide.
JERUSALEM (RNS) Religious leaders are pressing for the release of two Orthodox bishops who were kidnapped outside war-torn Aleppo, Syria, saying their plight reflects the insecurity of Syria’s Christian population.
SHREWSBURY, Mo. (RNS) About 125 Catholics packed a basement conference room — most of them lay people, many of them older. They gathered to learn how to spread the faith, a concept that is both fundamental to Christianity and nearly foreign to modern Roman Catholics.
(RNS) Reports this week that the late John Paul II may be on the verge on canonization isn’t a huge surprise, but Pope Francis’ decision to take a second look at martyred Salvadoran archbishop Oscar Romero shows that the process of making saints is as much about politics as anything else.
VATICAN CITY (RNS) One of Pope Francis’ innovations that has mostly remained off the radar screens so far: Every day at 7 a.m., he celebrates Mass with Vatican workers, and people are clamoring to learn more about his simple (and popular) homilies.
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Francis apparently meant what he said when he spoke of a “poor church, for the poor”: Vatican employees won’t get the $1,300 bonus many were expecting with the election of a new pope.
(RNS) Pope Francis sent a telegram to Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley on Tuesday, expressing sympathy for the victims of the marathon bombings and urging Americans to “overcome evil with good.”
VATICAN CITY (RNS) The decision to continue a Vatican overhaul of U.S. nuns, while not entirely unexpected, could nonetheless bring an end to Pope Francis’ honeymoon with the many American Catholics who had viewed the crackdown on nuns as heavy-handed and unnecessary.
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Francis has ushered in a new phase in the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, shifting the focus of the Catholic Church from the concerns of the industrialized North to the “problems of the Southern hemisphere.”
