Claire Giangravé

Assuring the crowd of the sustainable harvesting of the tree, the pope compared the rings in the 98-foot-tall tree to the generations of believers gathering around the single image of Jesus.

Vatican journalists were escorted inside the Vatican, passing through a parking lot with still-wrapped electric car charging stations, as the city-state continues in its effort to achieve zero emissions. Francis, sitting on his wheelchair, met with 15 members of the creative and directive team of Mercedes-Benz, which has been a key provider of popemobiles for the Vatican for almost 100 years, though this is the company’s first fully electric offering.

Pope Francis' plan to build an eco-village in the historic gardens of Castel Gandolfo, the summer residence of the popes, will be complete for the 2025 Jubilee. The "Borgo Laudato Sì" project, which combines sustainable agriculture with environmentally friendly teaching programs aimed especially at vulnerable and marginalized groups.

Cardinal Miguel Ayuso Guixot, a leading Vatican expert on Islam, died on Monday (Nov. 25) at the Gemelli Hospital in Rome, according to official Catholic Church news outlets. The cardinal was credited for rekindling the relationship between Sunni Islam and the Catholic Church. He was 72.

President-elect Trump promised to end all wars. The Vatican’s secretary of state cautioned that there are no ‘magic solutions’ to global conflicts.

A conference in London on Monday and Tuesday (Nov. 11-12) sought to bridge that gap by bringing together financial service industry experts with Anglican and Catholic leaders, who represent dioceses and congregations all over the world and an estimated portfolio of $1.75 trillion.

In 2025, Rome and the Vatican will host a jubilee, a 25-year anniversary. More than 30 million pilgrims are expected to visit to pray for indulgences and peace. The 3D replica of St. Peter’s is one of the many works and installations that the Vatican is preparing for the event.

Members of the transgender community, a U.S. doctor who provides gender-affirming care, and parents of a transgender daughter who struggled with her gender identity were among the 11 people present at the nearly 90-minute meeting.

Cardinal Marc Ouellet’s new book, "Word, Sacrament, Charism: Risks and Opportunities of a Synodal Church," hopes to offer a new perspective for synodal discussions by suggesting that the church should promote and enable charisms, intended as gifts by the Holy Spirit that are given to every baptized Catholic.

At a conference at the Vatican, physicists and theologians made the case for cooperation between faith and science.

"In thinking about the laws recently adopted in Ukraine, I fear for the freedom of those who pray, because those who truly pray always pray for all," Francis said after his Aug. 25 Angelus. The pope stated that "a person does not commit evil by praying" and urged Ukrainian leaders to "let those who want to pray be allowed to pray in what they consider their Church."

Pope Francis is waiting for ‘the appropriate time’ to visit Ukraine, according to that country’s ambassador to the Holy See, Andrii Yurash.

‘We think we have put together a dream team,’ said organizers of the event, which hopes to reconcile quantum theory and cosmology.

Holy See officials this week rushed to remedy tensions with Israel, which criticized the Vatican's pronouncements on the outbreak of violence in the Holy Land as too impartial and lacking a clear condemnation of Hamas.

Called to examine power structures in the Catholic Church, the Synod on Synodality will grapple in large part with the role of women.

A Vatican decision to not allow a progressive theologian to become the dean of a theological university in Italy highlights fractures within the church over sexual morality and also hints at divisions inside the Vatican.

Three Italian environmental activists will face their second trial hearing at the Vatican on Wednesday (May 24) for having glued themselves to the famous statue "Laocoön and His Sons" in the Vatican Museums last summer.

In dramatic testimony in the Vatican mega-trial on financial corruption. Jan. 13, a former Vatican diplomat admitted to influencing the deposition of  a key prosecution witness.

Former financial auditor Libero Milone seeks his day in court after claiming he was forced to resign by a ‘small mafia’ at the Vatican.

Members of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom criticized a recently renewed Vatican deal with China, saying it emboldens the Chinese government to crackdown on Christian communities.