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 [...]

Pope Francis has been back in the Vatican for just over a week, with at least seven more of recovery to go, all during which his doctors have ordered him to keep a loose schedule and a very much lightened work load.

The question, then, becomes: How will things work, with Francis not working [...]

The letter that Pope Francis addressed to the Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera on March 14 is the epitome of the pontificate.

When the newspaper published the letter on March 18, it was immediately apparent that the Pope could not have written it. There’s nothing wrong with that. Not all of the Pope’s [...]

The Holy See has denied that Pope Francis received Cardinal Gianfranco Ghirlanda in the first week of his hospitalization at Gemelli. The news spread very quickly and created a lot of turbulence. The fear was that Pope Francis intended to change the rules of the Conclave, as had been rumored for some time. Then, [...]

Pope Francis’s first “proof of life” since entering the hospital on 14 February came this past week, in the form of a recorded audio message played for the faithful gathered in St. Peter’s Square on the evening of Thursday, 6 March, before the nightly Rosary for his health.

No photo of the Pope in [...]

As of this writing, Pope Francis is still in hospital. He’s had some ups and downs, and his prognosis is reserved, but the official reports have been saying he is at work as and when he can, and last week the Vatican even produced the receipts.

While Pope Francis was in the hospital, the [...]

Communication regarding Pope Francis’ hospitalization has been somewhat uneven in recent days. In the beginning, there was talk of a highly complex medical case involving a patient who was not responding to treatment or new therapies. Then, the Holy See Press Office officially spoke of bilateral pneumonia, which, in any case, was added to [...]

President Donald Trump’s decision to shut down the US Agency for International Development – USAID – or at least freeze it pending thorough scrutiny and reassessment has created great panic among many of the world’s NGOs counting on it.

According to a logic that began after the Second World War – remember the Marshall [...]

Pope Francis has confirmed Cardinals Giovanni Battista Re and Leonardo Sandri as Dean and Vice Dean, respectively, of the College of Cardinals. The news may appear at first blush to be of the housekeeping variety – and it is – but housekeeping can say a lot..

Re and Sandri have already turned 80, which [...]