The College of Cardinals is an important part of the church’s governance structure. Its members elect the next pope and help develop future policies for the church.
Pope Francis arrives to a hero’s welcome at Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton on July 26, 2022, to take part in a public mass.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette
Apologizing for people versus the establishment that upheld not only the Indian Residential Schools system but protected – and continues to protect — the people who committed the crimes is horrifying.
Members of the Assembly of First Nations perform in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican on March 31, 2022.
(AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
Pope Francis and the Catholic Church must make a plan with Indigenous Peoples, not for us, in order to walk the path of reconciliation. Some initial suggestions of what a plan might include.
Pope Benedict XVI acknowledges the crowd during an audience in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican on Oct.24, 2007. A January 2022 report faulted his handling of several sex abuse cases.
AP Photo/Plinio Lepri
Pope Benedict XVI’s many years of wrestling with the abuse crisis highlight the Catholic Church’s broader challenges addressing it.
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI sits in St. Peter’s Basilica Dec. 8, 2015. A long-awaited report on sexual abuse faulted his handling of four cases.
AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia
A German report accused retired Pope Benedict XVI of mishandling several cases of sexual abuse in the 1970s and 1980s. Here are a few of our related articles on the Catholic Church’s crisis.
He may be praying, but so far the Pope has declined to intervene in Venezuela’s crisis to aid a unified coronavirus response.
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If anyone can convince the Maduro government and the Venezuelan opposition to come together to fight COVID-19, it’s the Pope. But the Church’s power to negotiate an emergency deal is limited.
A survey conducted in Jauary 2018 by the Pew Research Centre showed 84 percent of US Catholics had a ‘favourable’ opinion of Pope Francis. Six out of ten people also said he represented a ‘major change for the better’.
Vatican Media/AAP
Pope Francis continues to champion the importance of science in our world. Having the head of the Catholic Church support various scientific movements is a win for us all.
A woman holds up a quilt with photos of people who say they were abused as children by priests, in San Diego, 2007.
AP Photo/Denis Poroy
There is rich Catholic heritage of resistance. Catholic protesters have used powerful religious symbols, including vials of their own blood, as an extension of Christ’s blood, to demand change.
Clergy sex abuse was among the biggest religion stories of 2018. In this photo, a demonstrator holds up a protest sign at the Capitol in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
AP Photo/Jacqueline Larma
For scholars, researching the Catholic Church can mean a laborious process involving several years. And talking to survivors of clergy sex abuse can carry its own pain and personal toll.
A religion sociologist discovers that his criticism of the Church is based on lies.
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The Vatican is training priests to recognise and deal with the demonically possessed. This re-emergence of the Devil in popular Western culture is part of a new engagement with an enchanted world.