No one gathers Christians—Catholics and non-Catholics alike—throughout the world, however imperfectly, in the way the pope does. The world needs the pope.

The conclave that begins next Wednesday to elect a successor for Pope Francis is the first in 46 ½ years for which the Vatican hasn’t ordered a set of cassocks from the two best-known papal tailors.

What happens when a pope dies or resigns? Tom Reese, S.J., explains the steps in detail of what will occur at the Vatican after a pope's death.

Just as Popes John Paul II’s and Benedict’s final days revealed their understandings of the papacy, Francis’ illness has revealed him once again as the world’s parish priest, suffering close to his people.

Richard Williamson, an ultra-traditionalist Catholic bishop whose denial of the Holocaust created a scandal in 2009 when Pope Benedict XVI rehabilitated him and other members of his breakaway society, has died.

Colleen Dulle reports on Archbishop Vigano’s trajectory from Vatican civil servant to excommunicant.