Author: GIOVANNA DELL'ORTO Associated Press

VATICAN CITY — Pope Leo XIV ’s inauguration Mass on Sunday morning in St. Peter’s Square and Basilica is a ritual filled with symbolism that connects back to Peter, Jesus’ apostle, and his special mission as head of the Catholic Church. No new role is conferred — the pontiff is already the head of the […]

GENAZZANO, Italy — Pope Leo XIV closed his first public blessing as pontiff with a Hail Mary, after invoking the feast day of Our Lady of Pompei. On his first papal trip, he went to the Sanctuary of Our Mother of Good Counsel in the medieval village of Genazzano and on the drive back stopped […]

GENAZZANO, Italy — A new photo of Leo XIV stands by frescoes representing past papal visits to a Virgin Mary icon in the Sanctuary of Our Mother of Good Counsel, commemorating where he prayed two days after being elected pope. But the new pontiff is still “Father Bob” to the handful of Augustinian friars who […]

ROME — They don’t have a vote in the pope’s election, but nearly 900 superiors of the world’s female Catholic orders met in Rome on Monday to chart a course forward, a few miles from where cardinals will gather in a conclave to choose a successor to Pope Francis. Sister Mary Barron, president of the […]

ROME — Cardinal Álvaro Ramazzini is taking the same spirit to his first conclave that’s guided his decades-long front-line ministry among the migrants, poor and Indigenous people in Guatemala’s highlands — ensuring that the Gospel isn’t preached “in the abstract.” Advocating for migrants was a priority of Pope Francis, who made Ramazzini a cardinal in […]

ROME — At Masses in Rome’s housing projects and in the heart of its tourist district, the faithful prayed Sunday for the upcoming conclave that will elect Pope Francis ’ successor. Whether in the squat 1980s concrete church of San Paolo della Croce, next to a notorious public housing project, or facing millennium-old golden mosaics […]

ASSISI, Italy — Pilgrims have been pouring into this medieval hilltop town to venerate not only two of the Catholic Church’s most celebrated saints, Francis and Clare, but its newest — Carlo Acutis, the first millennial saint, who will be canonized on April 27. “St. Francis, St. Clare, of course, important saints who marked an […]

VATICAN CITY — How’s Pope Francis doing? Can you give him my get-well wishes? Can I speak with him directly? The nuns who operate the Vatican’s switchboard are fielding a growing number of calls with questions like that as the pope remains hospitalized in Rome. “They feel like children waiting to know about their father,” […]

VATICAN CITY — As Pope Francis remains hospitalized in Rome, thousands of faithful from around the world have been gathering by St. Peter’s and by the hospital to pray the rosary for him. Dating to the Middle Ages and popularized in the 16th century, the chain of beads that comprises a rosary is one of […]

ASSISI, Italy — As Pope Francis entered his third week in a hospital battling pneumonia, hundreds of pilgrims continued to make their way to this hilltop town to pray at the tomb of St. Francis, the hometown medieval saint whom the pontiff chose as his papal name. Groups from the United States, Ukraine and all […]