“We will all have to become accustomed to accepting the fact that if a priest gives this type of simple blessing, he is not a heretic,” a new press release from the Vatican’s doctrine office states.

Congress could learn something from the way cardinals elect popes in conclaves.

Pope Francis has continued to push for changes in the church, braving daunting opposition and several medical scares.

In his annual Christmas address to cardinals and bishops who work at the Vatican, Pope Francis said the real division in the church since Vatican II is “between lovers and those who have lost that initial passion.”

This week on Inside the Vatican, veteran Vatican correspondent Gerard O’Connell and host Colleen Dulle explain the financial scandal that led to the trial, the dramatic revelations that emerged throughout it, and what happens next—both to Cardinal Becciu and with Pope Francis’ financial and judicial reforms.

“This is an early Christmas present for the Catholic Church and for so many people who have felt that God really isn’t accompanying them,” Father James Martin says on this episode of ‘Inside the Vatican.’