U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi met with Pope Francis on Wednesday and received Communion during a papal Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, witnesses said, despite her position in support of abortion rights. Pelosi attended the morning Mass marking the feasts of St. Peter and St. Paul, during which Francis bestowed the woolen pallium stole on … Read more
The former director of the Vatican’s financial watchdog agency testified Wednesday that Pope Francis asked him to help the Vatican secretariat of state get full control of a London property, once again putting the pope and his top deputies in the spotlight for their roles in the problematic deal. Tommaso Di Ruzza is one of … Read more
Cardinal George Pell has called for the Vatican’s doctrine office to intervene and reprimand two leading European Catholic churchmen who called for changes in Catholic teaching on sexuality and homosexuality. Pell, who was convicted and then acquitted of sex abuse charges in his native Australia, said he understood the secular pressures in Germany were forcing … Read more
The Vatican’s big fraud and embezzlement trial, which opened to great fanfare in July, suffered another delay Tuesday as the tribunal postponed any further decisions until prosecutors finish redoing their investigation of four of the original 10 defendants. The delay means the trial, which had already been proceeding at a snail’s pace even by Italian … Read more
Defense lawyers in the Vatican’s fraud and extortion trial accused prosecutors on Wednesday of defying a court order by withholding pieces of evidence — including an alleged interrogation of Pope Francis — as the pontiff’s own role in a flawed London property investment again came before the court. The president of the Vatican City State … Read more
Vatican prosecutors have ordered the seizure of documents and computers from the administrative offices of St. Peter’s Basilica in an apparently new investigation into financial irregularities in the Holy See. The Vatican said Tuesday that Pope Francis also named a special commissioner to run the basilica, reorganize its offices, update its statutes to comply with … Read more
The Vatican on Wednesday replaced the director of its financial watchdog agency, completing a coup that began in October with controversial police raids on the watchdog offices and an investigation into a London real estate deal. The Vatican secretary of state named a Bank of Italy official, Giuseppe Schlitzer, to head the day-to-day operations of … Read more
Her son had been sexually abused by a priest of the Legion of Christ, a disgraced religious order. And now she was calling Cardinal Valasio De Paolis — the Vatican official appointed by the pope to lead the Legion and to clean it up — to report the settlement the group was offering, and to … Read more
Nine priests and brothers of a Catholic group recently shut down by the Vatican are under investigation by Italian authorities for allegedly sexually abusing two brothers, officials and news reports said Wednesday. Prato Bishop Giovanni Nerbini confirmed that Prato criminal prosecutors had opened an investigation after he reported the case to police against members of … Read more
The administrator of the elite Catholic school in Cancun, Mexico, used to take the girls out of class and send them to the chapel, where the priest from the Legion of Christ religious order would sexually abuse them. “As some were reading the Bible, he would rape the others in front of them, little girls … Read more