
Puerto Rico Catholics support archbishop
Roman Catholics in Puerto Rico rallied Wednesday around an archbishop who is apparently under pressure from the Vatican to resign for allegedly ...

Benedict XVI returns to Vatican for first time
Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI came home to the Vatican on Thursday for the first time since he resigned Feb. 28, beginning an unprecedented era for the ...

Benedict XVI returns to Vatican Thursday
Retired Pope Benedict XVI is coming home. The Vatican says the 86-year-old emeritus pontiff will move into his new retirement home in the Vatican ...

Frugal pope nixes bonus for Vatican employees
The global economic crisis is hitting Vatican employees in their cassock pockets. The Vatican said Thursday that Pope Francis, known for his frugal ...

Pope taps cardinals to advise on governing, reform
Pope Francis named eight cardinals from around the globe Saturday to advise him on running the Catholic Church and reforming the Vatican bureaucracy, ...

Pope faces tough decisions as Vatican reforms loom
Pope Francis has spent much of his first month as pope charming ordinary Catholics with his ordinary yet extraordinary papal ways and making clear he ...

Francis marks anniversary of John Paul II death
Pope Francis prayed Tuesday before the tomb of Pope John Paul II on the eighth anniversary of the beloved pontiff's death in what the Vatican said was ...

Pope Francis still has most of his right lung
Does the pope have only one lung? Despite erroneous reports that Pope Francis has lived most of his life with just one lung, the surgery actually only ...

Pope refers to "Muslim brothers" on Good Friday
Pope Francis reached out in friendship to "so many Muslim brothers and sisters" during a Good Friday procession dedicated to the suffering of ...

Pope washes women's feet in break with church law
In his most significant break with tradition yet, Pope Francis washed and kissed the feet of two young women at a juvenile detention center — a ...

Pope reluctant to be pope: What does it mean?
He still goes by "Bergoglio" when speaking to friends, seems reluctant to call himself pope and has decided to live in the Vatican hotel rather than ...

Pope Francis forces Argentine political about-face
Catholic doctrine considers the pope to be God's delegate on Earth. That alone might explain the remarkable about-face that Argentina's populist ...

Pope's house ready, but he's staying in hotel
The renovations on the papal apartment are finished, but Pope Francis has decided to stay put in the Vatican hotel for the time being. The Vatican ...

Pope Francis tells Benedict: 'We're brothers'
The two men in white embraced and showed one another the deference owed a pope in ways that surely turned Vatican protocol upside down: A reigning ...

''Unpredictable" pope worries security team
Forgive Pope Francis' security team for looking a bit nervous. One pope was shot in St. Peter's Square while riding in an open vehicle. Another was ...

Bergoglio OK'd slain priest sainthood cases
Before he became Pope Francis, Argentina's Catholic leader took the first steps toward granting sainthood status to priests and other Catholics who ...

Pope Francis to get simple coat of arms, ring
Pope Francis is mixing his Argentine past with his Roman present to create his new papal coat of arms, while harking back to a pope associated with ...

Pope wades into crowds, surprising onlookers
Walking up to crowds, shaking hands with surprised bystanders in the street, mixing his formal speeches with off-the-cuff remarks, Pope Francis ...

Vatican criticizes campaign against pope
The honeymoon that Pope Francis has enjoyed since his remarkable election hit a bump Friday, with the Vatican lashing out at what it called a ...

New style of papacy: Pope Francis pays hotel bill
On his first day as shepherd of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics, Pope Francis picked up his luggage at a Vatican hotel, personally thanked each ...

The Jesuits, veterans of tense times with Vatican
While the Vatican has picked the highly disciplined Jesuits as advance men for planning papal pilgrimages and to run its worldwide broadcasting ...

Argentine Jorge Bergoglio elected Pope Francis
From "the end of the earth," the Catholic Church found a surprising new leader Wednesday, a pioneer pope from Argentina who took the name Francis, a ...

POPE LIVE: Around the world as a new pope emerges
"Pope Live" follows the choice of the new pope as seen by journalists from The Associated Press around the world. It will be updated throughout the ...

First steps on becoming a pope
The pomp surrounding his selection was just the beginning of an exceptionally busy few days for Pope Francis. A look at the first night — and what ...