Pope Francis has been on retreat this week, along with the members of the Roman Curia. Continuing a practice the pope started during his first year on the chair of St. Peter, he and his collaborators are spending the week at a retreat house in the Roman hillside town of Arriccia. Carmelite Father Bruno Secondin ...read more

Point of View: Interpreting the Francis Effect is a S+L series that goes deeper into the important questions surrounding the person and pontificate of Pope Francis.  The series consists of a selection of the full interviews from S+L’s original documentary The Francis Effect. This week: Cardinal Donald Wuerl On the evening of February 28th, 2013, the world watched ...read more

Pope Francis told Ukrainian bishops to avoid politicizing their role in the face of the ongoing conflict in the country. He made the comment in a text handed out to the bishops during their Ad Limina visit this week. Ukranian Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk told reporters earlier in the week his goal, and the goal ...read more

Point of View: Interpreting the Francis Effect is a S+L series that goes deeper into the important questions surrounding the person and pontificate of Pope Francis.  The series consists of a selection of the full interviews from S+L’s original documentary The Francis Effect. This week: Archbishop Charles Chaput, OFM Cap. If you have never heard of ...read more

Pope Francis presided over Mass in St Peter’s Basilica on Sunday, to offer thanks to God together with the College of Cardinals, one day after bestowing the Red Hat on twenty new prelates from around the world. This is a very important homily which speaks not only to the specific occasion with the Cardinals, but ...read more

Below, please find the full English text of the Holy Father’s prepared remarks. Dear Brother Cardinals, The cardinalate is certainly an honour, but it is not honorific. This we already know from its name – “cardinal” – from the word “cardo”, a hinge. As such it is not a kind of accessory, a decoration, like ...read more

This week was bursting at the seams with things happening inside Vatican walls. Several key meetings were lined up back to back. The Council of Cardinals, known colloquially as “the C9”, met again this week to continue their work towards a reformed curia. This time they had a more immediate task: presenting the fruit of ...read more

It’s always difficult to say something about a subject that has not affected you in a particularly personal way. Nevertheless, death is a subject that is before us these days as a community of faith and as a society as a whole, and therefore warrants some reflection. I’d like to comment on two recent events ...read more

For the first time in its 239-year history, a pope will address the United States Congress. The news broke at the end of last week that Pope Francis would address a joint sessions of America’s two legislative bodies, the House of Representatives and the Senate. This would make the pope only the third foreigner in ...read more

On this week’s Vatican Connections, we look at the long-awaited beatification decree for Archbishop Oscar Romero. We talk to Father Frank Desiderio, a Paulist priest who worked with the producer of the 1989 film about the martyr, and we look at the reaction of Salvadoreans who have long referred to their slain archbishop as “el ...read more