There is a stark contrast between the idea that had been given of the funeral of Pope Francis, with the simplified rites and the desire that it not be seen as a sign of power, with the manner in which the transfer of the Pope’s body from the Santa Marta house to St. Peter’s [...]

Paradoxical and incomplete. The Pontificate of Pope Francis can be summed up in these two words. The time will come for all the excellent analyses apt to help us clarify whether Pope Francis’ revolution has given direction to the Church, or whether it was just a twelve-year tempest in a teacup. In short, to [...]

Except for the prefect of the Dicastery for the Oriental Churches, Cardinal Claudio Gugerotti, , there was not a single cardinal elector or even anyone with any particularly hefty role in the Vatican among the papal stand-ins during Holy Week.

When popes are ill or otherwise indisposed, standard practice in Holy Week and at [...]

Chosen to restore the Curia, overcome corruption, and even – it was said at the beginning of his pontificate – shutter the Institute of the Works of Religion once and for all (the IOR is the much-maligned and even more misunderstood “Vatican bank”), Francis finds himself at this moment of his pontificate facing a [...]

Pope Francis has been back in the Domus Sanctae Marthae for two weeks now, after more than a month in Rome’s Gemelli hospital. Besides a brief apparition on Sunday, at the end of the Mass for the Jubilee of the Sick, the Pope has not been seen publicly after the surprise stop at Santa [...]