The economically-ailing Vatican has inaugurated a 120,000-square-foot shopping mall to cater to the millions of tourists and pilgrims that visit it each year.
Pope Francis has raised the possibility of reconsidering the celibacy requirement for Catholic priests, stating that it is a "temporary prescription" and could be relaxed, although he did not believe it would encourage more men to consider a clerical vocation.
The Catholic bishop of Tyler, Texas, denounced President Joe Biden's "fake Catholicism" and called on the Vatican to weigh in after the president said Pope Francis and some bishops did not oppose taxpayer funding for abortion.
Pope Francis criticized laws that criminalize homosexuality as “unjust,” saying God loves all his children just as they are and called on Catholic bishops who support the laws to welcome LGBTQ people into the church.
Upon hearing the news of Pope Benedict XVI’s death on Saturday morning, I immediately thought of a long road trip I took with my wife 10 years ago, from Alaska to Texas, and a lonely stretch of highway in central Wyoming where, trapped in a car with nothing else to do, I listened to hours and hours of interviews conducted in the ’90s with then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the man destined to become Pope Benedict XVI.
Over a thousand faith leaders in the United States sign a petition urging a Christmas ceasefire in Ukraine and calling on the government to take a leadership role in ending the war.
Pope Francis on Monday said he sees “still greater omens of greater destruction and desolation” in the world and called on people “to put aside selfishness, indifference and antagonism.”
