Nicole Winfield

The Vatican on August 29 sought to tamp down an uproar that erupted after Pope Francis praised Russia’s imperialist past during a video conference with Russian Catholic youths, insisting that he never intended to encourage modern-day Russian aggression in Ukraine.

Pope Francis challenged young people on Thursday to make the world a more just and inclusive place, as he focused the second day of his Portugal trip on inspiring students to use their privilege to combat global warming and economic inequalities.

The Vatican prosecutor asked a court July 26  to convict 10 people, including a cardinal, of a range of financial crimes, sentence them to three to 13 years in prison and order the confiscation of some 415 million euros ($460 million) to pay the Holy See back for bad investments and financial losses over the past decade.

The Jesuits said that a famous artist priest is definitively expelled from the religious order for sexually, spiritually and psychologically abusing women, and lamented they couldn't prosecute him more vigorously under the Vatican's internal procedures.

The Vatican prosecutor insisted July 18 that his indictments of 10 people, including a cardinal, for alleged financial crimes held up under two years of testimony, criticism and defense motions, as he began closing arguments in a trial that exposed the unseemly financial underbelly of the Holy See.

The young cardinal in charge of Mongolia’s tiny Catholic community said July 17 that Pope Francis' upcoming visit to a country with just 1,450 Catholics is evidence of his willingness to travel to the farthest corners of the globe to minister to even a handful of the faithful.

Pope Francis’ peace envoy was traveling to Washington on July 17 as part of the Holy See's peace initiatives for Ukraine, hoping to support humanitarian operations especially concerning children, the Vatican said July 17.

Pope Francis gave in July 15 to China’s unilateral appointment of a new bishop in Shanghai, formally recognizing Beijing’s installation of Bishop Shen Bin three months after the fact.

 Italy’s Parliament is poised to open a bicameral commission of inquiry into the disappearance of the teenage daughter of a Vatican employee, the third new investigation launched in the four decades since Emanuela Orlandi vanished on the streets of Rome.

Exactly 40 years after the teenage daughter of a Vatican employee disappeared, the Vatican said June 22 that new leads "worthy of further investigation" had surfaced hopes of finally getting to the bottom of one of the Holy See’s enduring mysteries.

The head of a religious art and culture center founded by a disgraced Jesuit priest came to his defense June 17 after he was expelled from the Jesuit religious order following allegations of sexual, spiritual and psychological abuse against adult women.

Pope Francis’ Jesuit religious order said Thursday it has expelled a prominent Slovenian priest from the congregation following allegations of sexual, spiritual and psychological abuses against adult women.

Pope Francis briefly went to Rome's main hospital on June 6 for tests and returned to the Vatican, two months after he was hospitalized with an acute case of bronchitis.

If spirituality isn't driving the Catholic Church's missionary efforts, there is a risk of corruption, Pope Francis told the Vatican’s missionary fundraisers.

The Vatican is seeking clarity after the former director of its U.S. missionary fundraising office oversaw the transfer of at least $17 million of its endowment and donations into a new nonprofit and private equity fund that he created and currently manages. Fr. Andrew Small, the interim head of Pope Francis' clergy abuse commission, oversaw the transactions in his former role as national director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in the United States.

The archbishop of Chicago urged the Illinois attorney general on May 25 to provide information about newly uncovered cases of clergy sexual abuse that were included in a statewide investigative report, saying he would gladly add the names on his list of credibly accused priests if the claims were substantiated.

Pope Francis’ peace envoy for Ukraine, a veteran of the Catholic Church's conflict-mediation efforts, blasted war as a "pandemic" on May 23 and said all Christians are called to be peacemakers.

A top Vatican cardinal defended Pope Francis' "drastic" leadership firings at the Holy See's preeminent charity, saying May 12 they were necessary for the wellbeing of staff at Caritas Internationalis and not a condemnation of its work.

Pope Francis could meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the Vatican this weekend, a Vatican official said May 11.

The Vatican is formally recognizing 21 Coptic Orthodox workers who were beheaded by Islamic militants in Libya as martyrs with their own feast day, in a significant new ecumenical gesture aimed at forging unity between Catholic and Orthodox churches.