Vatican City

VATICAN CITY, Jan 1 (Reuters) - Pope Francis on Monday denounced a growing crackdown on the Catholic Church in Nicaragua by the government of President Daniel Ortega.

Twelve priests and a bishop have been detained in recent days in the Central American country, where Ortega began repressing the Church after national demonstrations in 2018.

"I am following with concern what is happening in Nicaragua, where bishops and priests have been deprived of their freedom," Francis said in his weekly Sunday message and blessing in St. Peter's Square.

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican’s chief prosecutor has appealed a court verdict that largely dismantled his theory of a grand conspiracy to defraud the Holy See of millions of euros but found a cardinal guilty of embezzlement.

Prosecutor Alessandro Diddi filed his appeal earlier this week, days after the three-judge tribunal issued its verdict in a complicated financial trial that aired the Vatican’s dirty laundry and tested the peculiar legal system in an absolute monarchy in the center of Europe.

VATICAN CITY, Dec 2 (Reuters) - The health of Pope Francis, who is suffering from a lung inflammation, is improving but he will read his Sunday message indoors from his residence to be on the safe side, the Vatican said on Saturday.

A statement said the 86-year-old pontiff had no fever and was continuing anti-biotic treatment.

He normally reads the message from a window of the Apostolic Palace overlooking St. Peter's Square. He would read it indoors to "avoid exposing himself to temperature changes", the statement said.

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis has decided to punish one of his highest-ranking critics, Cardinal Raymond Burke, by revoking his right to a subsidized Vatican apartment and salary in the second such radical action against a conservative American prelate this month, according to two people briefed on the measures.

VATICAN CITY, Nov 26 (Reuters) - Pope Francis, suffering from a "lung inflammation", appeared seated in the chapel of his residence instead of in St. Peter's Square while an aide read the pontiff's Sunday message.

The 86-year-old pope, wearing his traditional white robes and with a bandage on his right hand, remained seated next to the aide during the reading.

"Dear brothers and sisters. Happy Sunday. Today, I cannot appear at the window because I have this problem of an inflammation in the lungs," Francis said.

VATICAN CITY, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Pope Francis on Wednesday met separately with Israeli relatives of hostages held by Hamas and Palestinians with family in Gaza and said the conflict had gone beyond war to become "terrorism".

Speaking in unscripted remarks at his general audience in St. Peter's Square shortly after the meetings in his residence, Francis said he heard directly how "both sides are suffering" in the conflict.

"This is what wars do. But here we have gone beyond wars. This is not war. This is terrorism," he said.

VATICAN CITY, Nov 11 (Reuters) - Pope Francis has dismissed Bishop Joseph E. Strickland of Tyler, Texas, one of his fiercest critics among U.S. Roman Catholic conservatives, a Vatican statement said on Saturday.

It is very rare for a bishop to be relieved of his duties outright. Usually bishops in trouble with the Vatican are asked to resign before submitting a resignation, which the pope accepts.

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis shamed and challenged world leaders on Wednesday to commit to binding targets to slow climate change before it’s too late, warning that God’s increasingly warming creation is fast reaching a “point of no return.”

In an unusually bleak update to his landmark 2015 encyclical on the environment, Francis heightened the alarm about the “irreversible” harm to people and planet already under way and lamented that once again, the world’s poor and most vulnerable are paying the highest price.

VATICAN CITY (AP) — A few years ago, Pope Francis told the head of the main Vatican-backed Catholic women’s organization to be “brave” in pushing for change for women in the Catholic Church.

Maria Lia Zervino took his advice and in 2021 wrote Francis a letter, then made it public, saying flat out that the Catholic Church owed a big debt to half of humanity and that women deserved to be at the table where church decisions are made, not as mere “ornaments” but as protagonists.

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis created 21 new cardinals at a ritual-filled ceremony Saturday, including key figures at the Vatican and in the field who will help enact his reforms and cement his legacy as he enters a crucial new phase in running the Catholic Church.

On a crisp sunny day filled with cheers from St. Peter’s Square, Francis further expanded his influence on the College of Cardinals who will one day elect his successor: With Saturday’s additions, nearly three-quarters of the voting-age “princes of the church” owe their red hats to the Argentine Jesuit.