Pope Francis Sunday raised the first Uruguayan national to sainthood from St. Peter's Square when he canonized Mother Francisca Rubatto, an Italian-Uruguayan nun who lived between 1844 and 1904.
The late Pope John Paul I, known for his charismatic smile and his controversial sudden death 33 days into his pontificate, is to be beatified by a decree from Argentina-born Pope Francis for a miracle having cured an Argentine girl in 2011, whom the doctors practically considered dead.
Argentine president Alberto Fernandez and the political and power struggle that emerged from Sunday, September 12 primary elections cataclysm received scathing criticisms from the Pope and the Catholic Church.
Victims of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy demanded on Wednesday to meet Pope Francis to press their call for the Church to apply a zero-tolerance policy including the dismissal of bishops who covered up such offences.
In an unprecedented move, all of Chile’s bishops offered to resign on Friday after attending a crisis meeting this week with Pope Francis about the cover-up of sexual abuse in the country.
In a letter addressed to Argentine women and men who expressed their closeness on the fifth anniversary of his pontificate March 13, Pope Francis said his love for Argentina continues to be “great and intense,” and also apologized for gestures he’s made that might have caused offense.
As Pope Francis marks the fifth year of his papacy next week, the pontiff once hailed as a fearless reformer is under fire for his handling of the sex abuse scandals that have rocked the Roman Catholic Church. Since taking over in March 2013, the 81-year-old Argentine has championed the cause of the marginalized, saying he wanted a “poor church for the poor” and shunning papal palaces and ostentatious displays of wealth.
A Vatican magazine has denounced how nuns are often treated like indentured servants by cardinals and bishops, for whom they cook and clean for next to no pay. The March edition of “Women Church World,” the monthly women’s magazine of the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, hit newsstands Thursday. Its expose on the underpaid labor and unappreciated intellect of religious sisters confirmed that the magazine is increasingly becoming the imprint of the Catholic Church’s #MeToo movement.
Four Catholic churches in Santiago were attacked with fire bombs before dawn on Friday, causing minor damage and leaving notes threatening Pope Francis just three days ahead of the pontiff’s visit to Chile next week, police said.
Bolivian President Evo Morales implied in a Tweet that he and Pope Francis had discussed Bolivia’s territorial dispute with Chile during a meeting at the Vatican on December 15. According to the Vatican, the 30-minute private meeting “took place in a cordial atmosphere.”