Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri is no longer the general secretary of the Synod of Bishops. He was replaced by Bishop Mario Grech, who had been appointed pro-secretary at the eve of the Special Synod on the Pan-Amazonian region. Cardinal Baldisseri’s exit is the beginning of a generational shift of the Roman Curia that will [...]

An encyclical, two book-length interviews, three key speeches by the Pope, will all be out soon. It seems that Pope Francis is eager to tell the world what he thinks, the way he sees the world, and how the world should operate in the post-pandemic era. In the upcoming months, we are going [...]

“I like to think that, somehow, the Synod has never ended. This time of welcoming, and the process we have lived through, challenges us to continue to walk together and put this experience into practice.” Pope Francis writes this in a personal note to the Jesuit-run magazine La Civiltà Cattolica. The editor of the [...]

The Permanent Council of the German Bishops’ Conference gathered Aug. 24 in Wurzburg. Among the issues to discuss, the instruction by the Congregation for the Clergy on the parishes, which many German bishops did not like. At the end of the meeting, the German Bishops’ Conference said that it would accept the invitation [...]

Pope Francis often says that crises must be turned into opportunities. This is one reason why the new series of Pope Francis’ catecheses during the general audiences on Wednesdays is dedicated to the social teaching of the Church in the time of the pandemic.

This is a significant choice. For Pope Francis, the pandemic [...]

To mark the 160th anniversary of the death of the curé of Ars St. John Mary Vianney, Pope Francis issued last year a letter addressed to all the priests. Read today, that letter also tells something about what Pope Francis is putting into action now.

At the beginning of the letter, Pope Francis [...]

Last week, Pope Francis appointed the layperson Máximino Caballero Ledo as general secretary of the Vatican Secretariat for the Economy, which is a sort of Vatican vice-minister for Finances. There are two ways to look at this decision.

The first: Pope Francis is carrying forward the “professionalization” of the Curia and picking laypeople [...]

Why does Pope Francis feel the need to replace all the members of his private secretariat? At first, Fabián Pedacchio Leániz, who served as Pope Francis’ first secretary since the beginning of the pontificate, left the office at the beginning of the year. Pedacchio had been an official at the Congregation for Bishops since [...]

The Congregation for the Clergy published last week the “Instruction for the pastoral conversion of the parish community in the service of the evangelizing mission of the Church.” It is not a revolutionary instruction, although many looked to that document for clues of a revolution. They were disappointed when they were not [...]

In July, Pope Francis is usually on vacation. He takes advantage of this period to prepare the calendar for the upcoming year and set the basis for what he will do from September on.

There are no official news. However, some clues help us to understand the overall situation.

The first clue is that [...]