Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople said he will host Pope Francis in 2025 and they will go together to Iznik, Turkey, to celebrate the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea.
Forty-nine employees of the Vatican Museums have filed a class-action complaint with the Vatican administration demanding better seniority, leave and overtime benefits in an unusual, public challenge to Pope Francis' governance.
Ahead of meeting Pope Francis at the Vatican this weekend, New York's Mayor Eric Adams told NCR the pontiff is akin to a global "influencer." Said Hizzoner: "I think he's the right leader for the time we're in right now."
"Tradition is living" and not stagnant, Pope Francis wrote, and it must continually shape and take root in every part of the world and in every culture.
Noted Czech theologian Fr. Tomas Halik helped lead a Vatican gathering for some 200 parish priests about the ongoing synod process. He told NCR he was encouraged by the open and frank discussions that took place.
The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith will publish its new norms for the discernment of apparitions and other supernatural phenomena May 17, the Vatican press office said.
The spiritual practice of reparation "may be somewhat forgotten or wrongly judged obsolete" today, but it is essential for the promotion of justice and healing, including on behalf of those who have suffered abuse in the church, Pope Francis said.
Pope Francis signed a letter on synodality in the presence of parish priests and urged them to be "missionaries of synodality," said several of the priests present.
In a meeting at the Vatican on May 2, Pope Francis received assurances from Jordan's King Abdullah II that Christian and Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem will be protected amid the Israel-Hamas war.