Pope soldiers on through Easter Sunday after skipping Good Friday ‘to preserve health’

Pope soldiers on through Easter Sunday after skipping Good Friday ‘to preserve health’

Pope Francis overcame concerns about his health to preside over Easter Sunday Mass,leading some 30,000 people in a flower-decked St Peter’s Square.

  • byNicole Winfield

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Pope skips Good Friday event to preserve health ahead of Easter,Vatican says

Pope skips Good Friday event to preserve health ahead of Easter,Vatican says

His last-minute decision to stay home this year recalled the Good Friday that St John Paul II famously watched from the Apostolic Palace just before he died in 2005.

  • byNicole Winfield,Andrew Medichini andAritz Parra
The Vatican’s top expert on AI ethics is a friar from a medieval Franciscan order

The Vatican’s top expert on AI ethics is a friar from a medieval Franciscan order

Paolo Benanti is the go-to person on artificial intelligence and he has the ear of Pope Francis and of some of Silicon Valley’s top engineers and executives.

  • byFrances D'Emilio
Pope calls for universal ban on surrogate parenting,calls it ‘deplorable’

Pope calls for universal ban on surrogate parenting,calls it ‘deplorable’

Francis’ remarks are likely to antagonise pro-LGBT+ groups,since surrogacy is often used by gay or lesbian partners who want to have children.

  • byReuters
Pope Francis approves blessings for same-sex couples under certain conditions

Pope Francis approves blessings for same-sex couples under certain conditions

Roman Catholic priests can administer blessings to same-sex couples as long as they are not part of regular Church rituals or liturgies,the Vatican said.

  • byPhilip Pullella
George Pell’s great Vatican rival convicted of corruption

George Pell’s great Vatican rival convicted of corruption

Cardinal Angelo Becciu,the most senior Catholic Church official to stand trial before a Vatican criminal court,has been convicted of embezzlement and fraud.

  • byPhilip Pullella
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Pope Francis makes arrangements for his own,simpler,funeral

Pope Francis makes arrangements for his own,simpler,funeral

The pope,who turns 87 on Sunday,has decided to be buried outside the Vatican.

  • byPhilip Pullella
Italy grants citizenship to baby in Britain to prevent weaning off life support

Italy grants citizenship to baby in Britain to prevent weaning off life support

The Italian government intervened after England’s High Court ruled last month it was in the critically ill baby’s “best interests” to be taken off life support.

  • byAlvise Armellini
Letter shows Vatican knew about Nazi death camps despite long denial

Letter shows Vatican knew about Nazi death camps despite long denial

The Holy See has long argued that it couldn’t verify diplomatic reports of the Holocaust to denounce it during World War II.

  • byNicole Winfield
Not the ‘best way of putting it’:Pope says ‘great Russian empire’ comments were a mistake

Not the ‘best way of putting it’:Pope says ‘great Russian empire’ comments were a mistake

Pope Francis told Russian Catholics “Don’t forget[your] heredity. You are heirs of the great Russia...the great Russian empire,” as Vladimir Putin wages a war for Ukraine’s territory.

  • byPhilip Pullella
Ukrainian fury after Pope Francis tells Russian Catholics they are ‘heirs to great empire’

Ukrainian fury after Pope Francis tells Russian Catholics they are ‘heirs to great empire’

Russia’s bloody invasion of its neighbour Ukraine is widely seen as an attempt by Moscow to resurrect its empire.

  • byPhilip Pullella