Cardinal Pell was referring to recent comments about sexuality by Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich of Luxembourg and Bishop Georg Baetzing, the head of the German bishops’ conference.

The Vatican’s big fraud and extortion trial resumes Friday with a new spy story taking center stage that is more befitting of a 007 thriller than the inner workings of a papacy.

The Vatican is hosting a three-day symposium on the Catholic priesthood amid renewed public attention on clergy sex abuse scandals involving both children and adults and fresh research into the abuses of priestly power.

Italy’s Catholic military chaplain has pushed back strongly against calls by a former Vatican ambassador to resist Covid-19 vaccine mandates, saying the ambassador’s “conspiracy theories” were a source of confusion and disinformation.

Taxation “must favor the redistribution of wealth, looking out for the dignity of the poorest who risk always ending up crushed by the powerful,” the pope said in a meeting with members of Italy’s tax collection agency.

“We can hardly fail to see that these days, in addition to the pandemic, an ‘infodemic’ is spreading: a distortion of reality based on fear,” Pope Francis said Friday.

The lone cardinal indicted in the Vatican’s big fraud and embezzlement trial has issued a formal protest to the court claiming the pope’s prosecutors had offended his dignity by suggesting he was having sex with a co-defendant.

In a previously scheduled speech to the Vatican office that handles sex abuse cases, Pope Francis did not refer to the findings of a long-awaited report into how the Munich archdiocese handled abuse cases.

The Vatican has included a group that advocates for women’s ordination on a website promoting the 2023 synod, indicating that Pope Francis wants to hear from all Catholics during the process.

Pope Francis took the first step to reorganize the Vatican’s doctrine office, removing the No. 2 official widely believed responsible for a controversial document barring blessings for same-sex couples.