Nicole Winfield

The Vatican released on Monday details of Pope Leo XIV's upcoming four-nation Africa tour, suggesting Christian-Muslim relations, comforting victims of violence and encouraging the Catholic community in former European colonies will be key themes.

Pope Leo XIV demanded a ceasefire in the Middle East on Sunday in his strongest comments to date, directly addressing the leaders who launched the war in Iran.

The move and the consolidation of Leo's team suggest a new chapter is opening as his pontificate nears the one-year mark.

An early donor to the political career of Vice President JD Vance, Peter Thiel is also deeply interested in the apocalyptic concept of the Antichrist and has written and lectured on it before.

The patriarch of one of the most important Christian churches in the Middle East retired on Tuesday, setting the stage for new leadership as war engulfs the region.

The bones of St. Francis of Assisi went on public display for the first time Sunday, capping an 800-year saga over his bodily remains and confirming the enduring appeal to Christians of venerating a saint's relics.

The Vatican is marking the 400th anniversary of the consecration of St. Peter's Basilica with a host of visitor-friendly initiatives, including expanding access to its spectacular terrace and its snack bar in the shadow of Michelangelo's great dome.

The Vatican released Leo's agenda for day trips to a half-dozen Italian cities over the next six months. The Vatican has rarely released such plans together and so far in advance, but word of the visits was starting to filter out.

Pope Urban VIII "immediately realized that Bernini could become the Michelangelo of his century," the exhibit's co-curator Andrea Bacchi said.

In a message titled "Life in Abundance" issued on the same day as the Milan Cortina opening ceremony, Pope Leo XIV traced the history of Christian philosophers and popes who had identified sports and leisure activity as beneficial for both physical and spiritual development.

Spain's Catholic bishops agreed Thursday to let the Spanish government's ombudsman have the final say in the church's compensation of victims of sexual abuse by clergy members who have died or whose possible crimes are too old to be prosecuted.

A day after closing out the 2025 Holy Year, Pope Leo XIV on Wednesday opened a new phase of his pontificate by gathering the world's cardinals to Rome and indicating some reform-minded priorities going forward.

Pope Leo XIV opened 2026 on Thursday with a plea for peace, singling out in particular countries "bloodied by conflict" and families wounded by violence.

Pope Leo XIV urged Vatican cardinals on Monday to put their ambitions of power and personal interests aside, as he followed in Pope Francis' footsteps and used a Christmas greeting to gently criticize his closest collaborators.

This is a story both big and small, of art and faith and a human tragedy that caught the attention of Pope Francis: homeless German man Burkhard Scheffler died from the cold in 2022 on the edge of St. Peter's Square.

Pope Leo XIV criticized prison overcrowding and insufficient inmate rehabilitation programs on Sunday as he celebrated a special Mass for detainees, guards and their families in the final event of the Vatican's 2025 Holy Year.

Pope Leo XIV has taken his biggest step yet to correct one of Pope Francis' more problematic financial moves, canceling a special Holy See fundraising commission that was announced under questionable circumstances while Francis was hospitalized.

The Vatican then sent out a corrected version of its bulletin about the trip, removing reference to the planned "brief moment of silent prayer," without further explanation.

Pope Leo XIV is embarking on his first foreign trip, a pilgrimage to Turkey and Lebanon that would be delicate under any circumstances but is even more fraught given Mideast tensions and the media glare that will document history's first American pope on the road.

Pope Leo XIV accepted the resignation of a Spanish bishop who is under church investigation for allegedly sexually abusing a young seminarian in the 1990s. It is the first known time the new pontiff has removed a bishop accused of abuse.