Vatican Connections: Pope's challenges for the new year

Noel Ocol

Tuesday, January 8, 2019

We are back for a brand new year, continuing our 5th season of the latest behind-the-scenes stories directly from the Vatican. Over the holidays, a lot of interesting things happened in Rome that made headlines around the world.

Here are just a few of the stories that we bring you in tonight’s show.

There are some big expectations that the pope will take some major steps in 2019 in dealing with some of the big issues haunting the Church. We’ll look at what he has in store for this year.

The “Commander-in-Chief” side of the pope’s personality came out during his “year-end” meeting with the Curia. We’ll tell you what had him all fired up and what he vehemently vowed to do.

Just days before the start of the new year, an abrupt and unexpected resignation rocked the Vatican’s communications department, leaving many people wondering what happened and why.

This week in the history of the Vatican, we look at the year 1962 when Pope John XXIII excommunicated a very public political leader. Can you guess who that person might be? If not, you just might be surprised.