pope
Pope Leo XIV walks and shakes hands at the end of a special audience with thousands of journalists and media workers in the Paul VI Hall in Vatican City. The audience with journalists has become a tradition for newly elected popes. Credit: IPA/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect.
Over a grainy international phone call, I could hear people singing at St. Peter’s Square as I spoke with BBC journalist Mark Lowen about Pope Francis. It was April 21, and I, along with two other queer Catholic advocates, Max Kuzma and Simon Fung, were reflecting on what Francis had meant for each of us and our hopes for the future of the Catholic Church.
Pope Francis speaks to Marseille’s archbishop Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline, at a mass at the Velodrome Stadium, as a part of his journey on the occasion of the Mediterranean Meetings in Marseille, France, Sept. 23, 2023. Vatican Media/Handout via REUTERS
An old Italian saying warns against putting faith, or money, in any presumed front-runner ahead of the conclave, the closed-door gathering of cardinals that picks the pontiff. It cautions: “He who enters a conclave as a pope, leaves it as a cardinal.”
But here are some cardinals who are being talked about as “papabili” to succeed Pope Francis, whose death at the age of 88 was announced by the Vatican on Monday.
Pope Francis attends the consistory ceremony to elevate Roman Catholic prelates to the rank of cardinal, in Saint Peter’s Square at the Vatican, Sept. 30, 2023. REUTERS/Remo Casilli
Before he was hospitalized for double pneumonia, Pope Francis was battling firm resistance from some of his own cardinals about how to plug a widening gap in the Vatican’s finances.
'Conclave' / Focus Features
Directed by Oscar-winner Edward Berger (All Quiet on the Western Front), Conclave begins when the pope dies unexpectedly. To elect the next pontiff, the College of Cardinals convenes in the Vatican, entering total seclusion from the outside world until a majority vote can be reached. But if God is working through the cardinals, so too is something darker: ugly hunger for power and bitter ideological divide.
Pope Francis attends the World Meeting on Human Fraternity, at the Vatican, May 11, 2024. REUTERS/Ciro De Luca
The pope has again used a highly disparaging word against gay people for which he had already apologized last month, ANSA news agency said on Tuesday.
Pope Francis attends the weekly general audience, in Saint Peter Square at the Vatican, May 22, 2024. REUTERS/Guglielmo Mangiapane
Pope Francis, widely quoted as having used a highly derogatory word to describe the LGBTQ+ community, did not intend to use homophobic language and apologizes to anyone offended by it, the Vatican said on Tuesday.
An image of an empty bassinet. Photo by freestocks via Unsplash.
When Pope Francis called for a global ban on surrogacy during a foreign policy address last month, non-Catholics, especially those in the United States, may have felt the subject came out of nowhere. Surrogacy is medically and legally regulated in the U.S. as an intervention recommended by the American Society for Reproductive Medicine for those who do not have the ability to become pregnant or carry a pregnancy to term. But the pope’s concern was beyond the ethics of procreation, as he positioned his pronouncement within the context of a global economy and exploitation of women.
“A child is always a gift and never the basis of a commercial contract,” Francis said. “At every moment of its existence, human life must be preserved and defended; yet I note with regret, especially in the West, the continued spread of a culture of death, which in the name of a false compassion discards children, the elderly and the sick.”
Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke of the United States leaves after receiving his ring from Pope Benedict XVI during the Consistory ceremony in Saint Peter's Basilica at the Vatican on Nov. 21, 2010. REUTERS/Tony Gentile
Pope Francis has removed some of the Vatican privileges of conservative American Cardinal Raymond Burke, including a large, subsidized apartment and his salary, a senior Vatican official said on Tuesday.
Pope Francis delivering his blessing during the Angelus noon prayer, from the chapel of the hotel at the Vatican grounds where he lives on Nov. 26, 2023. Photograph by VATICAN MEDIA / Catholic Press Photo via Reuters.
Hundreds of Catholic institutions around the globe have announced plans to divest their finances of oil, gas, and coal to help fight climate change since Pope Francis published his landmark encyclical on environmental stewardship in 2015 urging a break with fossil fuels.
Catholic and Christian activists call for a cease-fire outside the White House in Washington, D.C., during a “pray-in” on Nov. 2, 2023. Juliann Ventura/Medill News Service for Sojourners
Fifty protesters gathered for a “pray-in” in Lafayette Square on Thursday afternoon, holding signs directly facing the White House that said, “Catholics say ceasefire now.”
Pope Francis attends a meeting with bishops of the Synod of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church at the Vatican, Sept. 6, 2023. Vatican Media/Handout via REUTERS
Ukraine’s Eastern Rite Catholic bishops bluntly told Pope Francis at a meeting on Wednesday that some of his comments about Russia had caused great pain and were being used by Moscow to justify a “a murderous ideology.”
Pope Francis speaks during a general audience at St Peter’s Square, Vatican City, March, 29, 2023. Vatican Media/Handout via REUTERS
Pope Francis has a respiratory infection and will need to spend “a few days” in hospital for treatment, the Vatican said in a statement on Wednesday
Pope Francis arrives for the audience of the faithful from the parishes of Rho in the Paul VI hall. Evandro Inetti/ZUMA Press Wire/dpa via Reuters.
Almost four years after Pope Francis issued tougher measures against sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, the Vatican announced on Saturday expanded and clearer rules
Nicaraguan Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes leads a mass at the Metropolitan Cathedral, as a suspension of diplomatic ties between Nicaragua and the Vatican has been proposed according to a Nicaragua’s foreign ministry statement, in Managua, Nicaragua March 12, 2023. REUTERS/Stringer
Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega has ordered the closure of the Vatican Embassy in Managua and that of the Nicaraguan Embassy to the Vatican in Rome, a senior Vatican source said on Sunday.
Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany, waves from a balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican after being elected by the conclave of cardinals, April 19, 2005. REUTERS/Max Rossi
Former Pope Benedict, who in 2013 became the first pontiff in 600 years to resign, died on Saturday at age 95 in a secluded monastery in the Vatican where he had lived since stepping down.
Pope Francis holds a little boy during his weekly general Audience In St. Paul Hall at the Vatican. Evandro Inetti/ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters.
Pope Francis was delighted when a young boy stormed onto the stage during his general audience on Wednesday, in which he addressed the topic of dialogue between young and old people.
Pope Francis is welcomed by some elders of the First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples during his visit to the Church dedicated to Our Lady of Seven Sorrows a Edmonton, July 25, 2022. Vatican Media/Catholic Press Photo.
Pope Francis on Monday made good on a promise to apologize to Canada’s native people on their home land for the Church’s role in schools where Indigenous children were abused, branding forced cultural assimilation “evil” and a “disastrous error.”
Pope Francis speaks during an exclusive interview with Reuters, at the Vatican, July 2, 2022. REUTERS/Remo Casilli
Pope Francis said he wants to give women more top-level positions in the Holy See and disclosed that for the first time he would name women to a previously all-male Vatican committee that helps him select the world’s bishops.
Pope Francis holds a news conference aboard the papal plane on his flight back after visiting Malta, April 3, 2022.
Pope Francis paid tribute on Sunday to journalists killed during the Ukraine war saying he hoped God would reward them for serving the common good whatever side they were on.
Métis National Council president Cassidy Caron poses for a group picture alongside Métis Residential School survivor Angie Crerar, 85, and other Indigenous delegates from Canada's First Nations after a meeting with Pope Francis near St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican, March 28, 2022. REUTERS/Guglielmo Mangiapane.
Survivors of Canada’s residential schools on Monday asked Pope Francis for unfettered access to church records on the institutions where Indigenous children were abused and their culture denied.