Charitable works did not stop. In many countries, the priests cannot celebrate Mass with the people because of the lockdown restrictions due to the coronavirus. However, the Church’s charities kept working, even harder, facing new and more difficult emergencies. As there are no public celebrations, the priests organized to broadcast daily masses via streaming. [...]

During the past week, Pope Francis postponed by a year the World Youth Day and the World Meeting of Families. And he did the same for the International Eucharistic Congress, that was set to take place in Budapest in September 2020, and will now take place on September 2021. The life of the Church [...]

The appointment of Giuseppe Schlitzer as director of the Vatican Financial Intelligence Authority has inaugurated the fourth season of the Vatican path toward financial transparency. Schlitzer filled the last vacant position in the authority’s top positions. The Authority was shocked last October by the suspension of its director, Tommaso Di Ruzza.

Di [...]

The news of the acquittal of Cardinal George Pell from sex abuse accusations came in the week that precedes Easter. After 400 days in prison, Cardinal Pell will finally be able to celebrate Mass and enjoy his freedom.

However, Cardinal Pell’s acquittal cannot be considered a victory. Cardinal Pell lost all of his [...]

The first page of the new edition of the “Annuario pontificio” might give a clue on Pope Francis’ reforms. The Annuario is the “Vatican who’s who,” which lists the names of all the Curia members and the dicasteries. The first page is always dedicated to the Pope and all the Pope’s titles.

That first [...]

While Italy is locked down because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Holy See has nevertheless continued to work, though with less staff on site. Also, Pope Francis has kept seeing regularly the heads of dicasteries, according to the so-called “udienze di tabella” (pre-scheduled and recurrent according to a fix cycle). The life of the [...]

On March 15, Pope Francis made one of his usual big gestures: while the city of Rome is locked down because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Pope went to the St. Mary the Major Basilica and then to the church of St. Marcello al Corso. In St. Marcello, there is a cross that saved [...]

The seventh anniversary of Pope Francis’ pontificate was celebrated in a surreal scenario. There are no public masses because of the Coronavirus pandemic, and the Diocese of Rome even got to the point to order to shut down the Churches, and then reconsidered the decision. Pope Francis was compelled to pray the Sunday Angelus and preach [...]

Ernesto Cardenal died a priest at the age of 95. Minister of the Sandinista government of Nicaragua at the beginning of the 1980s and for this publicly rebuked by St. John Paul during his trip to Managua in 1983, Cardenal had been suspended a divinis because his political position was incompatible with that of [...]

Pope Francis has no scheduled commitments this week. He was supposed to be outside of Rome to participate in the Lenten Spiritual Exercises for the Curia, but he caught a cold and stayed at home. There will be no activity in the Vatican, either. It might be a good break. After Querida Amazonia, the [...]