Two events last week were particularly significant. One was the international conference on the hundredth anniversary of the Chinese Council, with the presence of the bishop of Shanghai, Shen Bin, unilaterally appointed by the Chinese government and only later recognized by Pope Francis. The other was Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez’s trip to Cairo, [...]

That papal diplomacy under Pope Francis has two speeds became evident once more when news broke of the arrival of the bishop of Shanghai, Joseph Shen Bin, in Rome. The bishop is in town to participate in an event to mark the hundredth anniversary of the Plenary Council of Chinese Catholics in Shanghai in [...]

For the solemnity of Corpus Domini, the Pope used to go to his cathedral archbasilica of St. John Lateran in Rome. He celebrated Mass and then accompanied the Blessed Sacrament in an evocative procession that moved from the cathedral to the Basilica of Saint Mary Major. Pope Francis did this in the first years [...]

Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State, presented a book by Vatican expert Ignazio Ingrao on the “Five questions that agitate the Church” on April 24th. In his speech, he outlined Pope Francis’s reform efforts as a path that cannot be reversed, for which there should be a commensurate pastoral response everywhere, and ultimately [...]