Pope Leo XIV carried a wooden cross for all 14 stations of the Way of the Cross at the Colosseum on his first Good Friday as pontiff.

One hundred and thirty-three cardinals are sequestering themselves behind the Vatican’s medieval walls for the start of a conclave to elect a successor to Pope Francis.

Pope Francis recorded a pained and labored audio message to thank people for their prayers for his recovery.

Pope Francis’ medical team says the pontiff's condition isn’t life-threatening.

Vatican officials said that Pope Francis had developed pneumonia in both lungs, further complicating the pontiff’s recovery.

Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni has visited Pope Francis in the hospital and says he’s “alert and responsive” and full of good humor despite his pneumonia.

Vatican authorities said Monday that Pope Francis has a complex infection in his respiratory system and will require more targeted drug treatment.

The Vatican says Pope Francis is stable and that he followed Mass on television after a second night sleeping well at the hospital.

Doctors have prescribed “absolute rest” for Pope Francis to help him recover from a respiratory tract infection.

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.

In 1992, Sinéad O’Connor destroyed a photo of Pope John Paul II on U.S. national television.

A spokesman for Poland’s communist-era government in the 1980s who masterminded state propaganda and censorship for a regime in the final years before its collapse has died.

The Vatican says Pope Francis’ recovery from intestinal surgery continues to be “regular and satisfactory."

A magistrate slain by mobsters in Sicily has been beatified by the Roman Catholic church, the last formal step before possible sainthood.

Hans Kueng, a dissident Catholic theologian who fell out with Pope Benedict XVI, has died at age 93.

VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis will make a pilgrimage to Iraq in March, pandemic conditions permitting, the Vatican said Monday, in announcing what would be the pontiff's first trip abroad in more than a year. The Vatican said Francis had accepted invitations from the Iraqi government from the local Catholic church. It wasn't immediately clear if the pope would travel if he had not been vaccinated against COVID-19 before the trip. In mid-2019, Francis told Catholic aid agencies that he planned on traveling to Iraq in 2020. While then ailing, he had wanted to go to Iraq in 1999, but, according to the Vatican, the pilgrimage never happened because then-dictator Saddam Hussein postponed it.

Scott Applewhite, File)The Latest on the Vatican's investigation of ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and allegations of sexual misconduct (all times local). ___2:30 p.m.A Virginia man who accuses former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of sexually abusing him says he finds some comfort in the Vatican’s release of a report about the former prelate but he wants a public apology. “Its greatest failure is that it lets Pope Francis off the hook: nobody gave him the files, he knew only that there had been rumors, etc.,” she says. ___NoonAn advocate in Argentina for survivors of clerical sex abuse says ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick caused tremendous hurt and laments that church officials knew but did not act. It calls the report “one step in the right direction” but says the Vatican must ensure that past mistakes will not be repeated.

Those alarms continued, when a Catholic psychiatrist traveled to the Vatican in 1997 to report that his priest-patient was a victim of McCarrick's sexual abuse. McCarrick, 90, was defrocked by Francis last year after a Vatican investigation confirmed the globe-trotting envoy and fundraiser had sexually molested adults as well as children. “Pope Francis had heard only that there had been allegations and rumors related to immoral conduct with adults occurring prior to McCarrick’s appointment to Washington,” the report said. Vigano’s most explosive claim was that Francis himself lifted “sanctions" imposed by Benedict and made McCarrick a trusted adviser. Investigators interviewed 90 people, including McCarrick’s victims, former seminarians and priests, and officials from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Over 200 clergy abuse lawsuits led church leaders in the U.S. territory to seek bankruptcy protection, as they estimated at least $45 million in liabilities. (AP Photo/David Goldman)Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about today:1. CATHOLIC CHURCH WON $1.4 BILLION IN VIRUS AID Millions of dollars in taxpayer-backed aid went to dioceses that have paid huge settlements or sought bankruptcy protection because of clergy sexual abuse cover-ups, AP finds. HIGH COURT DRAWS TRUMPS IRE Even with two justices the president hand-picked, the Supreme Court has shown it is no rubber stamp for him or his administrations policies. TRUMP REBOOTS CAMPAIGN Trailing in the polls, the president will hold his first in-person fundraiser in a month in Florida and then a rally on Saturday night in New Hampshire.