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.”
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 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.”
Posted inPolitics & Society, Vatican Dispatch
Pope Francis tells young people: ‘You are the seed of a new South Sudan.’
Pope Francis repeated his pressing call for an end to the violence that has forced millions into camps for refugees or the internally displaced in South Sudan.
Posted inFaith, Vatican Dispatch
Pope Francis arrives in South Sudan with a message that ‘may appear blunt and direct’ to its leaders
Pope Francis is on an ecumenical pilgrimage for reconciliation and peace with Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury; and Iain Greenshields, the moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.
Posted inFaith, Vatican Dispatch
‘We thank God for the pope’: Takeaways from Pope Francis’ visit to the D.R.C.
In the D.R.C., Pope Francis has shown his advanced age and physical mobility problems have not limited his extraordinary capacity to console the afflicted, call evildoers to conversion and sustain the faithful in hope.
Posted inPolitics & Society, Vatican Dispatch
Pope Francis preaches peace to one million Congolese people at Zaire rite Mass
Pope Francis told the million Congolese gathered before him that Jesus has shown “three sources” from which “to nurture peace”: “forgiveness, community and mission.”
Posted inDispatches, Politics & Society
Pope Francis tells foreign exploiters in Congo: ‘Hands off Africa!’
”Hands off Africa!” Pope Francis said on the first day of his visit to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. “Stop choking Africa: It is not a mine to be stripped or a terrain to be plundered.”
Posted inFaith, Vatican Dispatch
Pope Francis taps Chicago-born bishop to lead Vatican department that evaluates new bishops
The decision comes at a time when Cardinal Ouellet is pursuing a defamation case against a Canadian woman church worker, who had accused him of unwanted sexual touching.