Francis

More than 2.3 million women have left the workforce since February of 2020, bringing their labor participation rate to levels not seen since 1988.

Here’s how single parents can get on track during the coronavirus pandemic.

A scandal over alleged sexual molestation and abuse at the Vatican’s youth seminary is growing, with more former papal altar boys alleging inappropriate behavior by priests inside the Vatican walls. Le Iene, an Italian investigative television program, plans to air the new allegations Sunday; the show provided the broadcast to The Associated Press ahead of time. The Vatican announced in...

On the heels of a bold call by Amazon region bishops for married men to become priests, Pope Francis is urging openness to new ways, and in a possible slap at conservative critics who fear he is weakening the Catholic church’s foundations, he cautions faithful against entering the “swampy waters of ideologies.” At Mass Sunday in St. Peter’s Basilica to...

Catholic bishops from across the Amazon called Saturday for the ordination of married men as priests to address the clergy shortage in the region, an historic proposal that would upend centuries of Roman Catholic tradition. The majority of 180 bishops from nine Amazonian countries also called for the Vatican to reopen a debate on ordaining women as deacons, saying “it...

With Prince Charles looking on, Pope Francis on Sunday canonized Cardinal John Henry Newman, praising the 19th-century Anglican convert who became an influential, unifying figure in both the Anglican and Catholic churches. Francis quoted from one of Newman’s most famous hymns, “Lead, Kindly Lights,” as he presided over Mass on Sunday before an estimated 50,000 people in a sun-drenched St....

Pope Francis urged bishops on Sunday to boldly shake up the status quo as they chart ways to better care for the Amazon and its indigenous people amid threats from forest fires, development and what he called ideological “ashes of fear.” Francis opened a three-week meeting on preserving the rainforest and ministering to its native people as he fended off...

Mexican women on Saturday marched for abortion rights, highlighting increased efforts across Latin America to lift some of the world’s most restrictive abortion laws. Efforts to legalize abortion have emerged in the region as some societies become more liberal and the Roman Catholic Church loses sway amid clerical sex abuse cases. Mexico City, along with Cuba and Uruguay, are the...

Pope Francis on Sunday decried “the culture of comfort” that leads to indifference in the face of a global migration and refugee crisis. The pope who has made caring for migrants a hallmark of his papacy spoke during a Mass for the World Day for Migrants and Refugees. “We cannot be indifferent to the tragedy of old and new forms...

Pope Francis on Friday warned tech company executives, diplomats and financiers that the race to create artificial intelligence and other forms of digital development pose the risk of increasing social inequality unless the work is accompanied by an ethical evaluation of the common good.

Pope Francis insisted Sunday that poverty isn’t inevitable and that the poor deserve the dignity of work as he visited a rock quarry in Madagascar where hundreds of people toil rather than scavenge in the capital’s biggest dump. Francis appealed for new development strategies to fight global poverty as he visited the Akamasoa project, or “City of Friendship,” which soars...

A Tennessee priest who banned Harry Potter books from a Catholic school’s library was accused by parents of causing their children psychological and spiritual harm. The Tennessean obtained a 2017 letter from 14 St. Edward Catholic School parents, urging the Nashville diocese to remove the Rev. Dan Reehil. The letter, with 50 bullet points, said Reehil is a toxic narcissist...

Cardinal Seán O’Malley will continue serving as the ninth bishop of the Archdiocese of Boston after Pope Francis rejected the cardinal’s letter of resignation, according to the Boston Globe.

Egypt’s first democratically elected president, Islamist leader Mohammed Morsi who was ousted by the military in 2013 after a year in office, collapsed in court while on trial Monday and died, state TV and his family said. The 67-year-old Morsi had just addressed the court, speaking from the glass cage he is kept in during sessions and warning that he...

The nation’s Roman Catholic bishops convened a high-stakes meeting Tuesday under pressure to defuse the ever-widening child sexual abuse crisis that has weakened the church. The bishops “face the task of rooting the evil of sexual abuse from the church,” Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said in opening the four-day meeting. The deliberations will...

The nation’s Roman Catholic bishops convened a high-stakes meeting Tuesday under pressure to defuse the ever-widening child sexual abuse crisis that has weakened the church. The bishops “face the task of rooting the evil of sexual abuse from the church,” Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said in opening the four-day meeting. The deliberations will...

Pope Francis braved a rain-soaked, twisting drive through the mountains of Transylvania on Saturday to visit Romania’s most famous shrine, urging Romanian and ethnic Hungarian faithful to work together for their future. Storms forced Francis to change his travel plans and add in a three-hour car ride through the Carpathian mountains that he had planned to traverse via helicopter. The...

Pope Francis urged Bulgarians on Sunday to open their hearts and homes to migrants, arguing that a country like Bulgaria, which is losing so much of its population to emigration, should well understand the forces that drive people to seek better lives elsewhere. As he arrived in the Balkan nation for a two-day visit, Francis “respectfully suggested” that Bulgarians recognize...

Pope Francis denounced the “cruel violence” of the Easter Sunday slaughter of Christians and foreigners in Sri Lanka as he celebrated the most joyful moment on the Christian liturgical calendar by lamenting the bloodshed and political violence afflicting many parts of the world. Francis skipped his homily during Easter Mass but delivered his traditional “Urbi et Orbi” (To the city...

At an Easter vigil in St. Peter’s Basilica, Pope Francis on Saturday encouraged people to resist cynicism or pursuing the “glitter of wealth,” and to avoid seeking life’s meaning in “things that pass away.” “Do not bury hope!” Francis exclaimed, after noting that when things go badly, “we lose heart and come to believe that death is stronger than life.”...