The big news at the end of last week was that Pope Francis will be participating in the G7 meeting scheduled for mid-June of this year, in the Italian region of Puglia, specifically to speak on Artificial Intelligence. The Pope will join a session for invited countries, not being the Vatican a part of [...]

Monsignor Alberto Perlasca, suspect-turned-star-witness for the prosecution in the recent “Sloane Ave” financial maxi-trial at the Vatican, is once again an adjunct promotor of Justice (i.e. prosecutor) of the Apostolic Signatura. The Vatican has yet to confirm the news, which first appeared as an indiscretion on the Italian gossip site, Dagospia. Reporters have confirmed [...]

Pope Francis has often warned against ”indietrism” in this last period of his pontificate. It is an unwieldy term in English, but there’s nothing arcane about it. The word comes from the Italian, indietro – “backward” – and could be rendered “backwardism” without too much trouble.

He has repeatedly warned that attending to the [...]

Is Pope Francis getting ready to pass the torch? Pope Francis still has several irons on the fire, and he is adding more. He’s making plans at a rate that strongly suggests the end of his turn is not within his own sight. He is also taking time to give his own view of [...]

Pope Francis celebrated Mass in Coena Domini on Holy Thursday in the women’s sector of the Rebibbia prison. It was a Mass of a certain solemnity, testifying to a fact that should not be underestimated: Pope Francis gives much importance to solemnity of liturgical form when he is with the marginalized, the poor, and [...]

Pope Francis’ decision to establish ten working groups whose task goes beyond the Synod is worth considering. The individual groups are interesting when considered in terms of their subject-matter, both for what they include and for what they don’t. The players are also interesting to consider. Who gets a seat at one of the [...]

There’s plenty of grist for the mill in the excerpts of Pope Francis’s autobiography, published last week in Italy’s Corriere della sera. One thing, however, is particularly striking: Pope Francis feels hurt by the claim that “Francis is destroying the Papacy.”

The Pope’s response was this: “My vocation is the priestly one: first of [...]

That the trial on the management of the Secretariat of State’s funds would lead to consequences and difficulties for the Holy See was understandable from the moment the Vatican Tribunal issued the sentence. The court itself presented inconsistent choices and a line of judgment that seemed to vary depending on the situations. Only the [...]

Perhaps the biggest problem with the profile of the next Pope provided by Demos II is that it seems to be part of a disembodied world. Just as Pope Francis is elusive in his decisions, Demos becomes less concrete when he – and the debate he is trying to steer – should be concrete.

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This week, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Francis Prevost, prefect of the Dicastery of Bishops, and Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, sent a letter to the German Synodal Path with the request not to vote on the establishment of a Management [...]