With the Christmas season officially over, this week the Vatican got back to business. Pope Francis had a full slate of meetings this week with a wide variety of guests: the priests from the Argentine College, the nuncios to Zimbabwe, Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as the papal delegate to Palestine and Jerusalem and a ...read more

History On November 16, 1989 on the campus of the Central American University in San Salvador, six Jesuit priests were pulled from their beds in the middle of the night and executed. The military officers who carried out the killing went unpunished for decades. Five of six Jesuits were Spanish citizens. In 2008 the Spanish ...read more

The Jubilee for Mercy is officially open and with it, so too are holy doors around the world. The Vatican inaugurated the holy year with the ceremony for the opening of the holy door. Adding to the festivities was a three hour light show called Fides Lux: Illuminating Our Common Home. Inspired by Pope Francis’ ...read more

The event Pope Francis has been waiting for since his pontificate started will finally kick off December 8. The Jubilee Year of Mercy officially begins on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception with the opening of the Holy Door at the St. Peter’s Basilica, though the jubilee is already in full swing in Bangui, Central ...read more

We have all learned by now that Pope Francis will release interviews to whomever he choses, whenever he feels the moment is right. The key is asking with simplicity and sincerity. So it should come as no surprise that he released yet another interview. This time the journalist was a former homeless person and the ...read more

Pope Francis is scheduled to make his first Apostolic Visit to Africa this month. His itinerary includes a stop in the Central African Republic where he will visit the capital, Bangui. For the first time the pope and Vatican officials have acknowledged that the visit to the war torn nation is less than certain. Tumultuous ...read more

Though the Synod on the Family is over, the analysis and even the “spin-od” continues in the media. Meanwhile, life moves on at the Vatican. As a result there were a few stories that got less than their fair share of coverage this week because writers were still focused on who said what about the ...read more

The three week Synod on the family is finally over, but the homestretch did not come without some drama: an Italian newspaper, Quotiando Nazione, reported that Pope Francis has a small, benign brain tumour. Cue the denials and conspiracy theories. Pope Francis provided his own plot twist, taking the floor on Thursday afternoon to announce ...read more

As discussion inside the Synod hall turned to issues that brought out personal stories and anecdotes from many participants, there was, according to the Vatican press office, an in-depth discussion around around divorced and civilly remarried Catholics and various calls for a better approach to marriage preparation. At least one member proposed that there should ...read more

The Synod of Bishops on the Family started this week. For a run down of what has been discussed so far, watch this week’s edition of Vatican Connections, or Salt and Light’s special synod coverage, Inside the Synod. There were a few non-synod items of interest over the past week. The pope’s message for World ...read more