Pope Francis is due in Brazil Monday on his first foreign trip as pontiff to attend an international youth festival in the world's biggest Catholic country.
Pope Francis’s response to the challenges of the Catholic Church has been to help find “an entirely new way to interact with the world” by the manner in which he communicates, said Sao Paulo Cardinal Odilo Scherer, one of two Latin Americans named to the Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelization created in 2010.
A few hours before Francis started his first overseas tour to Brazil, the Vatican’s ‘gay lobby’ was back in the headlines after the alleged exposure of a homosexual prelate appointed by the pope to a key position at the Vatican bank, IOR.
Despite the pope is Argentine and on Monday he will be making his first pastoral trip overseas to Brazil, Argentine government strict currency controls are making it difficult for prospective pilgrims to travel. An estimated 60.000 Argentines are expected to travel to Rio do Janeiro for the grand event.
Pope Francis, moving to overcome major crises in the Holy See, set up a special commission to reform its economic and administrative departments, the Vatican said on Friday.
Brazil's Catholic population has declined since 2000 while its Protestant population has grown during the past two decades, a Pew survey fund.
Pope Francis will not use bullet-proof ‘Pope-mobiles’ on his visit to Brazil next week to allow him more direct contact with crowds despite the security risks, according to a Vatican release.
Pope Francis is introducing changes to the Vatican legal system and has announced reforms on laws governing child abuse to penalties for staff who leak confidential information. The latest overhaul of the Holy See comes after years of scandals which have damaged the image of the Catholic Church.
Pope Francis has visited Lampedusa in the extreme south of Italy to pay tribute to the thousands of migrants who have lost their lives trying to reach the European Union and criticized what he called the globalization of indifference.
President Juan Manuel Santos wants his Uruguayan peer Jose Mujica “much closer” to the Colombian peace process which is currently taking place in Cuba and has invited him to the country, said Foreign minister Maria Angela Holguin during a visit to Montevideo.