Pope Francis has offered extensive praise for China at the end of a trip through Asia.

The Vatican is insisting at the close of a trial in London that it was the victim of a years-long fraud over its investment in a London property.

The Vatican’s chief prosecutor has strongly defended the integrity and fairness of the city state’s justice system.

The Vatican is standing trial in a London court over a property deal.

The Vatican has unveiled a groundbreaking project for the upcoming Venice Biennale of Art: It is mounting a multimedia installation inside Venice’s Giudecca women’s prison.

Lawyers for a once-powerful cardinal have accused Vatican prosecutors of being “prisoners to their completely shattered theory" in closing arguments of a trial that has raised fundamental questions about the rule of law in the city state.

Two Vatican trials are coming to a head this week.

It’s Day 6 of the U.N. General Assembly high-level meeting that brings world leaders together at U.N. headquarters in New York.

Italy’s Parliament is poised to open a bicameral commission of inquiry into the 1883 disappearance of the teenage daughter of a Vatican employee.

Pope Francis has intervened for the third time to crack down on the celebration of the old Latin Mass, a sign of continued friction with Catholic traditionalists.

Pope Francis has decided to give back to Greece the three fragments of Parthenon marbles that the Vatican Museums have held for centuries.

Cardinal Angelo Sodano, a once-powerful Italian prelate who long served as the Vatican's No. 2 official, has died at 94.

A 90-year-old Catholic cardinal, a singer and at least two others have been arrested in Hong Kong on suspicion of colluding with foreign forces to endanger China's national security.

The former director of the Vatican’s financial watchdog agency has testified that Pope Francis asked him to help the Vatican secretariat of state get full control of a London property at the center of a Vatican financial trial.

Vatican officials are defending the last-minute rollout of Pope Francis’ long-awaited reform of the Holy See bureaucracy while also painting it as one of the most consequential of his pontificate.

The head of the Polish bishops’ conference has done what Pope Francis has avoided doing by publicly condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The Vatican’s big fraud and extortion trial is exposing some unseemly realities of how the Holy See operates.

The Knights of Malta, an ancient Catholic order, are warning that the Vatican's proposals for reforming the order risk its internationally recognized status as a soverign state.

Pope Francis is now speaking about getting the coronavirus vaccination as a “moral obligation.”.

India's prime minister has invited Pope Francis to visit the country.

When President Joe Biden meets with Pope Francis on Friday, he won’t kiss the ring.

The Vatican has abruptly canceled the planned live broadcast of President Joe Biden’s meeting with Pope Francis.

A European court has ruled that the Vatican can’t be sued in a local court for sexual abuse committed by Catholic priests.

The Vatican prosecutor has conceded procedural errors in his fraud and corruption investigation into the Holy See’s finances and is offering to remedy them by essentially starting over.

The Vatican has set a July 27 trial date for 10 people, including a once-powerful cardinal and papal contender, on charges related to the Holy See’s 350 million euro investment in a luxury London real estate venture.

Paris' gay Pride parade has resumed to the joy of participants after the pandemic meant no such coming together last year.

European evaluators are warning that the Vatican’s efforts to investigate and prosecute financial crimes are suffering from understaffing and inexperience.

A Rome street artist has sued the Vatican for having used her poster art image of Christ for its Easter 2020 postage stamp without her knowledge or approval.

Pope Francis has challenged the Vatican’s internal media employees to essentially justify their continued work.

A Roman Catholic diocese in Minnesota says Pope Francis asked its bishop to resign after he was investigated by the Vatican for allegedly interfering with past investigations into clergy sexual abuse.

FILE - Cardinals listen as Pope Francis, background, delivers his Christmas greetings to the Roman Curia, in the Clementine Hall at the Vatican, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2019. Pope Francis has ordered pay cuts for Holy See employees, including slashing cardinals salaries by 10%. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, File)VATICAN CITY – Trying to save jobs as the pandemic pummels Vatican revenues, Pope Francis has ordered pay cuts for cardinals and other clerics, as well as nuns, who work at the Holy See. The Vatican's economy minister has said that the dwindled Museums revenue, as well as a drop in what Catholics donate, would contribute to a projected 30% reduction in revenue this year. The pay cuts also apply to several Vatican basilicas in Rome as well as to the Vicariate, or diocese of Rome, which is under the pope's direction.

Pope Francis has named the French nun to a Vatican position that should give her a vote in any upcoming meeting of bishops, a small step forward in the long campaign of Catholic women to have a greater say in Catholic decision-making. Luis Marín de San Martín, over the weekend as undersecretaries in the office that organizes thematic, weeks-long meetings of bishops at the Vatican. “A door has been opened,” the head of the Synod of Bishops office, Maltese Cardinal Mario Grech, told the Vatican's in-house media. AdThe Vatican’s laity office has two female undersecretaries, Linda Ghisoni and Gabriella Gambino, while the Vatican’s office for religious orders counts Sister Carmen Ros Nortes as its undersecretary. But aside from them the Vatican hierarchy is exclusively male and Francis himself counts no women among his closest advisers.

His attorney, Thomas Jubin, said multiple allegations against Hart were “specious,” with some based on second- and third-hand information, and with some accusers emphasizing that Hart didn't physically touch them. “Despite this, Bishop Hart asks me to convey that he continues to pray for all involved in this case so that they may find peace and healing. In Cheyenne, Biegler has previously stood by the findings of his review board, which determined a half-dozen claims were credible. As a result, the sentence showed the arbitrary nature of Vatican’s canonical sex abuse deliberations and judgments, which aren't public. The first known allegations against Hart dated to the early 1960s and were made in the late 1980s.

A statement from Vatican prosecutors said their decision would let her participate freely in an “imminent" trial in the city state. Vatican prosecutors have accused Marogna of embezzlement and misappropriation of Holy See funds. Italian police arrested Marogna in Milan on Oct. 13 based on an international warrant issued by the Vatican via Interpol. With the Vatican insisting she posed a flight risk, Marogna was jailed for two weeks before an Italian court ordered her freed. But outside the city state, Vatican prosecutors have been striking out.

Pope Francis personally authorized the raids after a trusted ally alerted Vatican prosecutors of suspicions about the investment. Questions about the lack of a separation of powers in the Vatican and independence of its judicial system have cropped up before. In one famous case, prosecutors decided to not even investigate the cardinal whose Vatican apartment was renovated using a half-million dollars in donations for the pope’s children’s hospital. When the Vatican prosecuted two journalists in 2015 for reporting on confidential Vatican documents, media watchdogs denounced the trial as an assault on press freedom. Next week lawyers for an Italian woman sought by Vatican prosecutors as part of the probe will argue against her extradition in an Italian court.

FILE - In this Monday, Dec. 21, 2020 file photo Pope Francis exchanges holidays greeting with Vatican employees in the Paul VI hall at the Vatican. Pope Francis has formally stripped the Vatican secretariat of state of its financial assets and real estate holdings following its bungled management of hundreds of millions of euros in donations and investments. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia, file)ROME – Pope Francis has formally stripped the Vatican secretariat of state of its financial assets and real estate holdings following its bungled management of hundreds of millions of euros in donations and investments that are now the subject of a corruption investigation. Francis signed a new law over the weekend ordering the secretariat of state to complete the transfer of all its holdings to another Vatican office by Feb. 4. Francis moved against his own secretariat of state amid an 18-month investigation by Vatican prosecutors into the office’s 350-million-euro investment into a luxury residential building in London’s Chelsea neighborhood and other speculative funds.

ROME – Pope Francis urged Vatican bureaucrats on Monday to stop their gossipy, self-absorbed conflicts, issuing another tough-love Christmas message at the end of a year marked by the coronavirus pandemic and a financial scandal at the Holy See. Francis gathered his cardinals, bishops and Vatican prelates for his annual Christmas greeting in the Apostolic Palace. This year, Francis said conflicts in the church between left and right, progressives and traditionalists, only hurt the church and distort its true nature. “For this reason, it would be good for us to stop living in conflict and feel once more that we are journeying together,” Francis said. Francis asked that the church not be judged on the crises of the past or present.

FILE - In this Oct. 28, 2020 file photo, Pope Francis salutes faithful at the end of his weekly general audience in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino, file)ROME – Pope Francis urged people to follow recommendations from governments and health authorities to prevent coronavirus infections as he returned to his private library for his Wednesday general audience amid a surge of infections in Europe. Francis held his audience Wednesday in his private library with around 10 priests to translate summaries of his catechism lesson, which was livestreamed. In his opening remarks, Francis said “unfortunately” it was necessary to return to the library to prevent infections. At the end of Wednesday's audience, Francis offered prayers for the victims of recent “deplorable" attacks in Europe.

VATICAN CITY – The Vatican criminal tribunal agreed Tuesday to broaden a sex abuse trial involving the Holy See's youth seminary beyond two priests already charged to include the religious organization responsible for running the residence. The seminary, located in a palazzo inside the Vatican gardens, houses boys aged 12-18 who serve as altar boys at papal Masses in St. Peter's Basilica. Attorney Dario Imparato asked the court to also charge the seminary itself and the Opera Don Folchi association of priests that runs it, as well as the diocese of Como, which is responsible for both. The development substantially broadens the first-ever criminal trial in the Vatican concerning allegations of sexual abuse that occurred on Vatican soil. After that, Pope Francis waived the statute of limitations in the case and signed off on a new policy for Vatican City requiring such crimes to be reported to Vatican prosecutors.

VATICAN CITY – The Vatican's latest corruption scandal already had all the elements of a spy thriller: One cardinal who was fired during a “surreal" nighttime audience with the pope. Another cardinal, the nemesis of the first, who returned triumphantly to Rome after being acquitted of sexual abuse in Australia. Enter Cecilia Marogna, a 39-year-old political consultant who was arrested Tuesday in Milan on an international warrant issued by the Vatican, Italy's financial police confirmed Wednesday. According to Vatican documents published in Italian newspapers and shown on investigative television shows this week, Cardinal Angelo Becciu, the onetime No. Italian Vatican commentator Luis Badilla, writing in the much-read Vatican blog Il Sismografo, has noted that that the new president of the Vatican criminal tribunal, a former Italian magistrate, is also an editorial commentator for Italy's La Repubblica newspaper, whose expose last month led to Becciu's ouster.

ROME – Pope Francis told European anti-money laundering experts Thursday that the Vatican was committed to “clean finance,” as he denounced financial speculation amid a spiraling corruption investigation in the heart of the Holy See. The pope didn’t mention the scandal in his own backyard, but it couldn’t have been far from the evaluators’ minds given the headlines of recent weeks and months that have thrown the Vatican into chaos. Vatican prosecutors have been investigating the London investment for over a year, but haven’t handed down any indictments. Italian newspapers have been rife with reports about the Vatican’s other financial investments, including in risky, speculative funds controlled by the middlemen. The Vatican passed its inaugural Moneyval evaluation after its first on-site visits in 2011-2012, but received poor or failing grades for its financial watchdog agency and its bank.

Pope Francis blesses a newly wed couple during his weekly general audience in the St. Damaso courtyard at the Vatican, Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2020. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)ROME – The Vatican released a detailed budget, balance sheet and earning statement for the first time Thursday as it sought to reassure Catholics that it's serious about cleaning up its financial act following a corruption scandal that has exposed shoddy fiscal management. The data showed that the Vatican bureaucracy had narrowed its deficit to 11 million euros last year from 75 million euros in 2018, even taking into account a 25 million-euro drop in donations from dioceses and individuals alike. The Vatican's overall patrimony blooms to 4 billion euros ($4.7 billion) when taking into account the cash-cow of the Vatican Museums, the Vatican bank and other sources of assets and funds. Astonishingly, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith - in recent decades perhaps the best-known Vatican office because it processes all clergy sex abuse cases - operates on an annual budget of 3.36 million euros.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo meets Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, at the Vatican, Thursday, Oct. 1, 2020. Pompeo is meeting Thursday with top Vatican officials, a day after tensions over U.S. opposition to the Vaticans China policy spilled out in public. The State Department sought to play down the differences, but tensions were palpable during Pompeo’s two-day visit to Rome. The disagreement on China comes as the Vatican is heading into delicate negotiations with Beijing to extend its controversial 2018 accord over bishop nominations. Pompeo spent about 45 minutes Thursday meeting in the Apostolic Palace with his Vatican counterpart, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, and the Vatican foreign minister, Archbishop Paul Gallagher.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivers his speech during the "Advancing and Defending International Religious Freedom Through Diplomacy" symposium, in Rome, Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2020. Pompeo made the appeal at a conference on religious freedom organized by the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See. It took place at the same time the Vatican is entering into delicate negotiations with Beijing on extending its controversial agreement over bishop nominations. In the audience was Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Vatican foreign minister, who didn’t mention China in his remarks. A State Department deputy spokesperson, Cale Brown, said Pompeo raised the issue during his meeting with Conte, and noted the “risks" of doing business with China.

If ever there was a defining moment of Pope Francis during the coronavirus pandemic, it came on March 27, the day Italy recorded its single biggest daily jump in fatalities. What does all this mean for a 83-year-old globe-trotting pope and his ministry to the 1.2-billion-member Catholic Church? Alberto Melloni, a church historian usually sympathetic to Francis, declared that the pandemic marked the beginning of the end of Francis pontificate. As evidence of the conservative wing's desire to look beyond the Francis papacy, two books were published this summer by prominent Catholic authors. But their publication suggests that at least some are thinking about what comes next, not just after the pandemic, but the papacy.

FILE - In this Tuesday, Dec. 24, 2019 file photo, Pope Francis celebrates Christmas Eve Mass in St. Peter's Basilica. Vatican prosecutors have ordered the seizure of documents and computers from the administrative offices of St. Peters Basilica in an apparently new investigation into financial irregularities in the Holy See. The Vatican said Tuesday that Pope Francis has also named a special commissioner to run the basilica, reorganize its offices, update its statutes to comply with new Vatican norms on procurement contracts and to clarify its administration. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)ROME Vatican prosecutors have ordered the seizure of documents and computers from the administrative offices of St. Peters Basilica in an apparently new investigation into financial irregularities in the Holy See. Vatican prosecutors last year launched a separate investigation into the Vatican secretariat of states purchase of a luxury London building amid allegations that middlemen had fleeced the Holy See out of millions of euros.

At the time Salazar says she was sexually abused by a Legion of Christ priest. In this Jan. 14, 2020 photo, Ana Lucia Salazar holds the letters that Legion of Christ's new director general Rev. From the outset, the late papal envoy who ran the Legion, Cardinal Velasio De Paolis, refused to hold complicit Legion superiors accountable or investigate past abusers. Christian Borgogno, a former Legion priest who co-founded the “Legioleaks” Facebook group where Salazar first went public in May. One of the young victims was Biani López-Antúnez, whose mother had also reported the abuse to the Legion in 1993.