Three priests and a layperson where arrested in Spain after Pope Francis encouraged an abuse victim to take his case to authorities. The victim, a 24 year old, male,  Opus Dei supernumerary, wrote to Pope Francis after hearing the pontiff statements about zero tolerance for abusers and people who cover up abuse. Upon reading the ...read more

The Vatican bank has repatriated twenty three million euros that were frozen for more than three years, by Italian authorities. The Institute for Works of Religion, commonly known as the Vatican bank, announced the repatriation of the money in a statement released November 18. The funds were unblocked in 2011 but was not repatriated because ...read more

Things are returning to a normal pace at the Vatican after the end of the extraordinary synod. Pope Francis kept a full schedule this week, which included his daily masses, a meeting with members of popular movements from around the world (non-religious movements that advocate for worker’s rights, indigenous land rights, fair wages, and access ...read more

With the Synod of Bishops wrapped up this week was rather quiet at the Vatican. One surprise did arrive: the Vatican announced that Pope Francis will be visiting Turkey at the end of November. He will fly to Ankara on November 28, where he will meet with government officials. From there he continues on to ...read more

The first week of the Synod on the family has wrapped up in Rome. Participants have moved from general working sessions into small group sessions where they will go over the issues discussed “in aula” and work towards creating a unified document that can be presented to Pope Francis. While there has been unity among ...read more

The third season of Vatican Connections has kicked off on our network, and just in time too! There were some notable Episcopal moves in the last couple of weeks, some late breaking announcements, and some surprises. You can hear all about those in this week’s edition of Vatican Connections. One event that came by surprise, ...read more

With the pope’s one major summer trip over and done with, attention can now return to what we could call “housekeeping” matters: appointing new bishops to dioceses that have been awaiting appointments, and filling up the papal agenda for this fall. This week Pope Francis named the new Archbishop of Madrid, Spain. Cardinal Antonio Rouco ...read more

Most of the 80,000 Iraqi Christians forced out of their villages in recent days and weeks have taken refuge around the churches in Ain Kawa, a Christian neighbourhood of Erbil, according to aid officials in Iraq. A member of the Sant’Egidio Community in Iraq reported to the Catholic Near East Welfare Association that Christian churches ...read more

Last summer Pope Francis was sending millions of young people into a frenzy at World Youth Day Rio. This summer he will be attending the Asian Youth Day in Daejon, Korea, It will be the first time a pope has attended this Asian youth event. In truth, Asian Youth Day will be one part of ...read more

Several weeks ago Pope Francis, while giving a homily in Cassano allo Ionio, declared that members of the Mafia are not in communion with God, “they are excommunicated”. Outside of Italy the homily got attention because it was so unexpected and didn’t really make sense. For Italians in the south, the declaration was long overdue. ...read more