For the first time, a layman and a nun provided the English and Spanish translations of Francis’ weekly catechism lesson rather than a cloaked monsignor, a small but revolutionary change for the Vatican.

Pope Francis is facing a sustained campaign of opposition from some Catholics. He has responded with the papal equivalent of “no more Mr. Nice Guy.”

The apology drew immediate praise Monday from New Ways Ministry as a “historic” move to repair the painful rift between the Catholic hierarchy and the gay community.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in told Pope Francis Friday that a papal visit to North Korea would help create “momentum for peace” on the peninsula, officials said.

A Vatican tribunal absolved a former altar boy of charges that he molested a younger boy in the Vatican’s youth seminary, ruling Wednesday in the first clergy sexual abuse trial to be heard by the pope’s criminal court.

The Vatican prosecutor conceded procedural errors in his fraud and corruption investigation into the Holy See’s finances and offered to remedy them by essentially starting over, throwing the trial of 10 people into question.

“Even in the College of Cardinals, there are some negationists,” Francis said Wednesday, en route home from Slovakia.

To date women haven’t been able to vote—not even the religious superiors who participate as representatives of the world’s 641,000 nuns.

Vatican prosecutors have alleged a jaw-dropping series of scandals in the biggest criminal trial in the Vatican’s modern history, which opens Tuesday in a modified courtroom in the Vatican Museums.

A smiling and standing pope patted the children on their heads as their parents held them, according to photos of the encounter released by the Vatican.