Pope Francis met privately yesterday with Russian president Vladimir Putin at the Vatican, using the talks to call for a sincere effort aimed at bringing peace to Ukraine.

Pope Francis has approved an unprecedented Vatican department to judge bishops accused of covering up or not preventing sexual abuse of minors, in an attempt to meet a key demand by victims’ groups.

A record six million people poured into Manila’s rain-soaked streets and its biggest park as Pope Francis ended his Asian pilgrimage with an appeal for Filipinos to protect their young from sin and vice so they can instead become missionaries of the faith.

A record six million people poured into Manila’s rain-soaked streets and its biggest park as Pope Francis ended his Asian pilgrimage with an appeal for Filipinos to protect their young from sin and vice so they can instead become missionaries of the faith.

A church volunteer has died after she was hit by scaffolding following a mass celebrated by Pope Francis in the central Philippine city of Tacloban.

Pope Francis yesterday named 20 new cardinals from around the world to the elite group at the top of the Roman Catholic hierarchy, including 15 who can enter a conclave to choose his successor after his death or resignation.

The Holy See has released a radical feminist activist who bared her breasts in St Peter’s Square on Christmas Day and snatched the statue of Baby Jesus from the Vatican’s outdoor Nativity scene.

The Vatican has asked the US to find an “adequate humanitarian solution” for prisoners held at the Guantanamo Bay detention centre, a reflection of Pope Francis’s vocal concern that prisoners be treated with dignity and not be subject to inhumane treatment.

The Vatican is asking the United States to find an “adequate humanitarian solution” for prisoners held at the Guantanamo Bay detention centre.

His head bowed and hands clasped in front of him, Pope Francis stood today for two minutes of silent prayer facing east inside one of Istanbul’s most important mosques, as he shifted gears toward more religious affairs on the second leg of his three-day visit to mainly Muslim Turkey.

The Vatican has altered the English version of a groundbreaking overture to gay people.

The Vatican has altered the English version of a ground-breaking overture to gay people.

Two great nephews of Pope Francis, and their mother, have been killed in a road crash in Argentina.

Pope Francis urged Asia’s Catholic youth to renounce the materialism that afflicts much of their society today and reject “inhuman” economic systems that disenfranchise the poor.

About 2% of Roman Catholic clerics are sexual abusers, an Italian newspaper yesterday quoted Pope Francis as saying, adding that the pontiff considered the crime "a leprosy in our house".

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Pope Francis has begged forgiveness from the victims of clergy sex abuse in his first meeting with abuse survivors.

Hamas has warned Israel against any retaliation over the deaths of three teenagers in the West Bank, threatening that “the gates of hell will open”.

The Vatican is turning to social media to reach out to the millions of pilgrims expected to attend the first double canonisation of popes in the history of the Catholic Church.

The Vatican has hit back at a UN human rights committee that issued a scathing report on sex abuse by priests accusing it of straying beyond its mandate and discrediting the UN as a whole by adopting the “prejudiced” positions of anti-Catholic advocacy groups.

Time magazine named Pope Francis its person of the year, hailing the head of the Catholic Church as a new voice of global conscience since taking office in March.

US secret services allegedly eavesdropped on cardinals before the conclave in March to elect a new pope, Italian weekly magazine Panorama has claimed.

Popes John XXIII and John Paul II will be declared saints at a ceremony on Apr 27 that might see two living popes honouring two dead ones.

Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI has emerged from his self-imposed silence inside the Vatican walls to publish a letter to a prominent Italian atheist defending his record on sexually abusive priests and discussing topics from evolution to theology to the figure of Jesus Christ.

Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI has emerged from his self-imposed silence inside the Vatican walls to publish a letter to a prominent Italian atheist defending his record on sexually abusive priests and discussing topics from evolution to theology to the figure of Jesus Christ.

It certainly has a ring to it — the new pontiff has picked up the nickname “cold call Pope” due to his penchant for spontaneously ringing people out of the blue.

Pope Francis today recruited a veteran Vatican diplomat to be his top aide, replacing the Holy See’s secretary of state who in recent years increasingly became a divisive figure in a church hierarchy mired in embarrassing scandal and financial probes.

Pope Francis has criticised the Brazilian church’s failure to keep its flock from straying to evangelical churches, challenging the region’s bishops to be closer to their people to understand their problems and offer them credible solutions.

Pope Francis’s relentless pace on his tour of Brazil is wearing out his aides.

Pope Francis is forgoing his bulletproof Popemobile for his upcoming trip to Brazil for the Catholic Church’s youth festival.

Pope Francis has overhauled laws that govern the Vatican City, criminalising leaks of information and specifically listing sexual violence, prostitution, and possession of child pornography as crimes against children that can be punished by up to 12 years in prison.

Pope Francis has cleared Pope John Paul II for sainthood, approving a miracle attributed to his intercession and setting up a dual canonisation along with another beloved pope, John XXIII.

A senior Catholic cleric with connections to the Vatican bank was arrested for plotting to help rich friends smuggle tens of millions of euro in cash into Italy from Switzerland, in the latest blow to the Vatican’s image.

Pope Francis has named a commission of inquiry to look into the activities of the troubled Vatican bank, amid a new money-laundering probe and continued questions about the secretive institution.

Pope Francis lamented that a “gay lobby” was at work at the Vatican in private remarks to the leadership of a key Latin American church group — a stunning acknowledgment that appears to confirm earlier reports about corruption and dysfunction in the Holy See.

The Vatican has denied Pope Francis performed an exorcism after an Italian religious television channel said footage of the pontiff blessing a boy in a wheelchair showed he had.

Fears grew for the health of pope emeritus Benedict last night after a visiting German cardinal expressed shock at how thin he had become since resigning.

A Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi has denied a report that claims the health of former Pope Benedict has deteriorated.

Pope Francis sat in silent prayer during this year’s Good Friday procession, which was re-enacting Christ’s crucifixion, and recalled the wars and “violent fundamentalism” that are devastating the Middle East today.

Pope Francis wants to stay, for the time being, in a simple Vatican residence instead of the spacious and regal papal apartments.

A reigning pope and a former pope faced each other for the first time in at least 600 years on Saturday when Pope Francis travelled south of Rome for lunch with his predecessor, pope emeritus Benedict XVI.

Pope Francis has travelled to Castel Gandolfo to have lunch with his predecessor Benedict XVI in an historic meeting.

Pope Francis’s apt choice of symbols has nods to tradition as well as his Argentinian roots, writes Daniela Petroff

Pope Francis paid a heartfelt tribute to his predecessor Benedict XVI, saying his faith and teaching had “enriched and invigorated” the Catholic Church and would remain its spiritual patrimony forever.