Vatican City

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis on Wednesday linked the suffering of Ukrainians now to the 1930s “genocide artificially caused by Stalin,” when the Soviet leader was blamed for creating a man-made famine in the country believed to have killed more than 3 million people.

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Italy’s Catholic bishops on Thursday provided their first-ever accounting of clergy sexual abuse, but Italy’s main survivor advocate said it was “shamefully” inadequate given it only covered reports to church authorities over the last two years and omitted documentary research into church archives.

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis is bringing his message of dialogue with the Muslim world to the kingdom of Bahrain, where the Sunni-led government is hosting an interfaith conference on East-West coexistence even as it stands accused of discriminating against the country’s Shiite majority.

VATICAN CITY, Oct 2 (Reuters) - Pope Francis for the first time directly begged Russian President Vladimir Putin to stop the "spiral of violence and death" in Ukraine, saying on Sunday that the crisis was risking a nuclear escalation with uncontrollable global consequences.

In an addreVATICAN CITYss dedicated to Ukraine and made to thousands of people in St. Peter's Square, Francis also condemned Putin's latest annexation of parts of Ukraine as being against international law. He urged Putin to think of his own people in the event of an escalation.

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Catholic Church’s decades-long sex abuse scandal caught up with a Nobel Peace Prize winner Thursday, with the Vatican confirming that it had sanctioned the East Timor independence hero, Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo, following allegations that he sexually abused boys there during the 1990s.

VATICAN CITY, Sept 3 (Reuters) - Pope Francis on Saturday dissolved the leadership of the Knights of Malta, the global Catholic religious order and humanitarian group, and installed a provisional government ahead of the election of a new Grand Master.

The change, which the pope issued in a decree, came after five years of often acrimonious debate within the order and between some top members of the old guard and the Vatican over a new constitution that some feared would weaken its sovereignty.

VATICAN CITY (AP) — With a solemn ceremony to create new cardinals, Pope Francis was poised Saturday to formally expand the ranks of churchmen now eligible to vote for his successor in case he dies or resigns — the latter a step he has said he’d consider if the need arises.

Of the 20 churchmen being raised to the rank of cardinal in St. Peter’s Basilica, 16 are younger than 80 and thus eligible to participate in a conclave — the ritual-shrouded, locked-door assembly of cardinals who cast paper ballots to elect a new pontiff.

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis began a fraught visit to Canada on Sunday to apologize to Indigenous peoples for abuses by missionaries at residential schools, a key step in the Catholic Church’s efforts to reconcile with Native communities and help them heal from generations of trauma.

VATICAN CITY, July 21 (Reuters) - The Vatican on Thursday slammed the brakes on a German progressive movement that aims to give lay Catholics a say in doctrinal matters such as homosexuality and women priests, saying this risked causing a schism in the universal Church.

A short but stern statement said the so-called "Synodal Path" could not assume it had the authority to instruct bishops on doctrine or morality. The movement's co-chairs responded that they made no such claim and expressed surprise.

VATICAN CITY, July 8 (Reuters) - Pope Francis has acknowledged that there is resistance by some national Catholic Churches on implementing measures to protect children from sexual abuse by clergy but said that there is no turning back on an "irreversible" path.

Sexual abuse in the Church and measures to combat it were among one of the many Church and international topics the 85-year-old pontiff discussed in an exclusive interview with Reuters in his Vatican residence on July 2.