“If the women of South Sudan are given an opportunity to develop, to have space to be productive, South Sudan will be transformed.”
Gerard O’Connell
Gerard O’Connell is America’s senior Vatican correspondent and author of The Election of Pope Francis: An Inside Story of the Conclave That Changed History. He has been covering the Vatican since 1985.
Posted inFaith, Vatican Dispatch
Pope Francis says Vatican II was ‘a visit of God to his church’ in new interview
“The [Second Vatican] Council was a visit of God to his church. It was one of those things that God produces in history through holy people,” Pope Francis said in an interview published in Belgium on Feb. 28.
Posted inPolitics & Society, Vatican Dispatch
Pope Francis says he does not ‘condemn capitalism’ in new book
“I do not condemn capitalism in the way some attribute to me. Nor am I against the market [economy],” Pope Francis stated in El Pastor, a new book by two Argentine journalists.
Posted inPolitics & Society, Vatican Dispatch
Interview: Vatican foreign minister on a year of war in Ukraine, the growing nuclear threat and relations with Putin
In an exclusive interview on the one-year anniversary of the war in Ukraine, Archbishop Paul Gallagher emphasizes the need to end the war but says that “a just peace” is not on the horizon.
Posted inPolitics & Society, Vatican Dispatch
Pope Francis’ Africa trip is over. But the Jesuits of South Sudan hope his message of peace will endure.
“Pope Francis’ message is really about a personal relationship with Jesus,” Kizito Kiyimba, S.J., to America’s Vatican correspondent. “His message remains after him.”
Posted inFaith, Vatican Dispatch
Pope Francis reaffirms bishops must get Vatican approval to allow Latin Mass
Pope Francis has unequivocally confirmed that bishops must obtain authorization from the Holy See before granting permission to celebrate the pre-Vatican II Mass in parish churches.
Posted inFaith, Vatican Dispatch
Pope Francis: ‘The pope’s ministry is for life,’ resignation should not become ‘the normal thing’
Pope Francis has dismissed the idea that he could soon resign and stated clearly for the first time, “I believe that the pope’s ministry is ad vitam [for life]. I see no reason why it should not be so.”
Posted inPolitics & Society, Vatican Dispatch
Pope Francis denounces imprisonment of Nicaragua’s Bishop Rolando Álvarez
Pope Francis today publicly denounced the sentencing of Nicaragua’s Bishop Rolando Álvarez to 26 years and four months in prison.
Posted inFaith, Vatican Dispatch
Pope Francis names Bishop Frank Leo new archbishop of Toronto
Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Cardinal Thomas Collins as archbishop of Toronto and appointed Bishop Francis Leo to succeed him as the 14th archbishop of Canada’s largest diocese.
Posted inFaith, Vatican Dispatch
Pope Francis: Critics who used Benedict’s death ‘have no ethics’
Pope Francis hit out strongly against the way people have sought to manipulate Benedict’s death. “People who instrumentalize such a good person, [a man] of God, almost I would say a holy father of the church, have no ethics,” he said. “They are of a party, not of the church.”