Pope Francis

“You cannot believe in God and belong to the Mafia,” Pope Francis said during a visit to the Italian Mediterranean island to which the Cosa Nostra organised crime network is native.

Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Monsignor Michael J Bransfield as bishop of Wheeling-Charleston in the US state of West Virginia, a Vatican statement said.

In a statement, the Vatican said Pope Francis had authorised “an investigation on the economic-administrative aspects” of the institution, “which is still ongoing”.

Pope Francis has summoned the heads of national Catholic bishops conferences from around the world to the Vatican in February for a meeting to discuss the protection of minors from sexual abuse, the Vatican said on Wednesday.

The archbishop who sparked a crisis in the Catholic Church by calling on Pope Francis to resign has denied he was motivated by personal vendetta and said he sought to show that corruption had reached the top levels of the Church hierarchy.

Pope Francis said this at the Marian Shrine of Knock on Sunday, his second day in Ireland.

Pope Francis says clergy sex abuse scandals are an “open wound” that must be treated with “firm and decisive” action.

“Pope Francis must further elaborate on how the Vatican could move beyond “palliatives’’ and resolve ongoing abuse scandals currently rocking the Church’’.

Pope Francis on Monday asked forgiveness for child abuse crimes and cover-ups within the Catholic Church, admitting that the pain of victims “was long ignored, kept quiet or silenced”.

A Venezuelan archbishop, who served as Pope Francis’ ambassador to Mozambique was named on Wednesday as the Vatican’s new substitute of the Secretariat of State. The head of the Secretariat of State is considered the Vatican’s unofficial…

A leading Roman Catholic cardinal and key adviser to Pope Francis called on Tuesday for the Vatican to “swiftly and decisively” adopt strict policies for cases of sexual abuse involving bishops and top clergy.

Francis, speaking at the end of a summit of Christian religious leaders, also repeated his view that the “status quo” of the contested city of Jerusalem should be respected, and backed a two-state solution to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian…

Francis led a service in St Peter’s Basilica attended by over 200 people, including people rescued at sea and representatives of migrant charities.

“What does it profit us to gain the whole world if we are living in a stifling atmosphere of intrigues that dry up our hearts?’’ the pope said. “We might think of all those palace intrigues that take place, even in curial offices.’’

According to a statement, bishops Alejandro Goic of the city of Rancagua and Horacio Valenzuela of the city of Talca would be replaced by commissioners, known as apostolic administrators.

The pope visited Myanmar in November 2017 and later, in neighbouring Bangladesh, had an emotional meeting with Rohingya refugees who had fled there from Rakhine state.

Francis made his comments in a message to participants at a conference on international migration being held in the Vatican.

In an unprecedented move, all Chile’s 34 bishops offered to resign en masse in May after attending a crisis meeting with the pope over allegations of a cover-up of sexual abuse in the South American nation.

Pope Francis, who wrote a document on protecting the environment from global warming in 2015, will address 40 participants – including leading oil and gas executives and major industry investors – on Saturday.

A preparatory document released on Friday also says the meeting, known as a synod, taking place in October 2019, should consider conferring on women in the area some “type of official ministry”.