Pope Leo XIV is vowing to actively promote and protect the spirituality and traditions of the eastern rite churches, those Catholic communities with origins in the Middle East and North Africa that have been decimated by conflict and persecution.

Details have begun to emerge of how votes swiftly coalesced to make Pope Leo XIV history’s first American pope.

Americans in St. Peter’s Square were stunned and joyous when they learned that an American cardinal, Robert Provost, was elected pope and had taken the name Leo XIV.

Cardinals are meeting in a secret, sacred conclave for a second day as they seek a new pontiff to follow Pope Francis.

Cardinals are meeting in a secret, sacred conclave for a second day as they seek a new pontiff to follow Pope Francis.

Black smoke has poured out of the Sistine Chapel chimney, indicating no pope was elected on the first ballot of the conclave to choose a new leader of the Catholic Church.

Before he died, Pope Francis donated one of his popemobiles to be converted into a mobile health unit to serve the children of Gaza, officials said Monday.

Cardinals hailing from 71 different countries are eligible to elect a pope this week in the most geographically diverse conclave in history.

While Pope Francis accomplished a lot in his 12-year papacy, he left much unfinished business and many challenges for his successor — from the Vatican’s disastrous finances to the wars raging on multiple continents.

President Donald Trump has posted an artificial intelligence-generated image of himself dressed as pope.

“Conclave” the film may have introduced moviegoers to the spectacular ritual and drama of a modern conclave, but the periodic voting to elect a new pope has been going on for centuries and created a whole genre of historical trivia.

It could very well be the biggest sporting event ever held inside the walls of the Vatican.

Cardinals have decided the conclave to elect a successor to Pope Francis will begin May 7.

The Vatican is closing the Sistine Chapel to the public as part of preparations for the conclave to elect the next pope after the death of Francis.

President Donald Trump says he doubts Russia’s Vladimir Putin wants to end his war in Ukraine.

Three days of public viewing of Pope Francis’ body by ordinary mourners and statesmen alike have ended and the pontiff's coffin sealed.

Thousands of people have begun filing through St. Peter’s Basilica to pay their final respects to Pope Francis at the start of three days of public viewing ahead of his funeral.

Pope Benedict XVI stunned the world when he announced his resignation in 2013, the first in 600 years.

Vatican News has reported that Pope Francis was thankful that he was able to greet throngs of people in St. Peter’s Square on Easter, a day before he died.

An Irish-born American cardinal was entrusted by Pope Francis to be the camerlengo, the Vatican official who runs the Holy See after the death of one pontiff and before the election of another.

Following the death of Pope Francis — the first Latin American pontiff who charmed the world with his humble and pastoral style — former Dallas Bishop Cardinal Kevin Farrell will serve as interim overseer of the Vatican and preside over the conclave until a new pope is elected

As the world continues to mourn Pope Francis’ loss, KPRC 2’s Bill Barajas shared his own story about how he was fortunate to visit Vatican City last year. Of course, this wasn’t his first visit to Vatican City.

The death of a pope sets in motion a series of carefully orchestrated rites and rituals well before the conclave to elect his successor begins.

U.S. Vice President JD Vance has met briefly with Pope Francis on Easter Sunday as the pontiff recovers from pneumonia.

Pope Francis has visited Rome’s main prison and kept an Easter season appointment to spend Holy Thursday among the least fortunate.

A convalescing Pope Francis has greeted the crowd in St_ Peter’s Square on Palm Sunday, wishing more than 20,000 faithful a “Happy Palm Sunday, Happy Holy Week."

Pope Francis has made a surprise entrance to St. Peter’s Square during a special Jubilee Mass for the sick and medical workers in his first public appearance at the Vatican since leaving the hospital.

The Vatican says Pope Francis spends part of his days at his desk working and concelebrates Mass daily in his private chapel.

King Charles III is scheduled to have an audience with Pope Francis during a state visit next month to the Vatican, suggesting the Holy See is optimistic the pontiff will be back at work by then.

The nuns who operate the Vatican’s switchboard are fielding a growing number of calls.

As Pope Francis remains hospitalized in Rome, thousands of faithful from around the world have been gathering by St. Peter’s and by the hospital to pray the rosary for him.

The Vatican says that Pope Francis has increased his physical activity, called the Catholic parish priest in Gaza and marked the start of Lent by receiving ashes on his forehead.

There has long been a Vatican taboo against openly talking about a conclave when a pope is sick: It’s considered gauche to speculate about the election of a new pope while the current one is fighting for his life.

Thousands of people have gathered in St. Peter’s Square to pray for an ailing Pope Francis, expressing sorrow for his suffering, hope for his recovery and gratitude for his efforts to steer the Catholic Church in new directions.

The Vatican has detailed laws and rituals to ensure the transfer of power when a pope dies or resigns, but not when he is sick.

The Vatican says that Pope Francis is in “fair condition” at a hospital with a respiratory tract infection and is running a mild fever.

The once-powerful archbishop of Peruvian capital Lima and the first-ever cardinal of Opus Dei has acknowledged that the Vatican had imposed sanctions on him in 2019 following an allegation of sexual abuse.

Pope Francis has warned that bullying in schools prepares students for war rather than peace.

Roman Catholic faithful will be able to view St. Peter’s tomb via a webcam as part of the Vatican’s upcoming Holy Year.

A digital twin of St. Peter’s Basilica has been created using artificial intelligence to explore one of the world’s most important monument’s.

Pope Francis’ yearslong process to reform the Catholic Church has ended with recommendations that fall far short of giving women more equity as hoped.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says it’s important that allies’ aid to Ukraine doesn’t decrease next year.

Pope Francis has taken the unusual decision to expel 10 people from a troubled Catholic movement in Peru after a Vatican investigation uncovered “sadistic” abuses of power, authority and spirituality.

Pope Francis has urged Indonesia to live up to its promise of “harmony in diversity” and fight religious intolerance.

Pope Francis is making the longest, farthest and most challenging trip of his pontificate when he goes to Asia and Oceania this week.

Pope Francis has voiced his hope that the Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games will provide an opportunity for countries at war to respect an ancient Greek tradition and establish a truce for the duration of the Games.

The Vatican says its doctrine office will be preparing a document on women in leadership roles in the Catholic Church, as part of a new initiative to respond to longstanding demands by women to have a greater say in the church's life.

Before flying to Italy’s southern Puglia region to meet world leaders at the Group of Seven summit, Pope Francis hosted a very different audience at the Vatican celebrating the importance of humor.

The Vatican has revised how it evaluates purported supernatural events, such as reported visions of the Virgin Mary, to guard against hoaxes and account for news going viral.

The Vatican has radically reformed its process for evaluating alleged visions of the Virgin Mary, weeping statues and other seemingly supernatural phenomena.

The Vatican has crossed a key milestone in the runup to its 2025 Jubilee with the promulgation of the official decree establishing the Holy Year.

The Vatican says Pope Francis will visit Indonesia, East Timor, Papua New Guinea and Singapore in September.

Pope Francis has met with relatives of hostages taken by Hamas on Oct. 7.

The Vatican has declared that gender-affirming surgeries and surrogacy are grave violations of human dignity.

Pope Francis appears in better health, walking into the Vatican audience hall on his own with a cane for his weekly audience and delivering his prepared text with a clear voice.

The Vatican has unveiled a groundbreaking project for the upcoming Venice Biennale of Art: It is mounting a multimedia installation inside Venice’s Giudecca women’s prison.

Pope Francis was taken briefly to a hospital in central Rome after the papal audience on Wednesday.

Pope Francis was well enough to celebrate his weekly Angelus prayer from the Vatican window overlooking St. Peter’s Square, a day after cancelling his engagements because of a mild flu.

Five years ago this week, Pope Francis convened an unprecedented summit of bishops from around the world to impress on them that clergy abuse was a global problem and that they needed to do something about it.

The longtime prefect of the Vatican Secret Archive is spilling the beans for the first time.

Pope Francis in a Christmas Eve homily said that “the clash of arms even today” prevents Jesus “from finding room in the world."

The Vatican’s chief prosecutor has appealed a court verdict that largely dismantled his theory of a grand conspiracy to defraud the Holy See of millions of euros.

A Vatican tribunal has convicted a cardinal of embezzlement and sentenced him to 5 ½ years in prison in one of several verdicts handed down in a complicated financial trial that aired the city state’s dirty laundry and tested its justice system.

Pope Francis has presided at his weekly audience with the public at the Vatican.

Two Vatican trials are coming to a head this week.

Pope Francis has suggested there might be ways to bless same-sex unions.

Pope Francis will open this week a global gathering of Catholic bishops and laypeople to discuss the future of the church.

Pope Francis is presiding over a ceremony to create 21 new cardinals.

Women who say they were abused by a once-prominent Jesuit artist say they are now being revictimized by his superiors.

Pope Francis’ Ukraine peace envoy has discussed the need to resume the stalled Ukraine grain export deal to feed the world’s hungry during a meeting with a Chinese official in Beijing.

Italy’s Parliament is poised to open a bicameral commission of inquiry into the 1883 disappearance of the teenage daughter of a Vatican employee.

Exactly 40 years after the teenage daughter of a Vatican employee disappeared, the Vatican announced new leads “worthy of further investigation” have surfaced.

An unprecedented global canvassing of Catholics has called for the church to take concrete steps to promote women to decision-making roles.

A French nun is charting an unprecedented period of reform in the Catholic Church as one of the highest-ranking women at the Vatican.

Two days after being discharged from the hospital, Pope Francis resumed his cherished Sunday custom of greeting the public in St. Peter's Square.

Pope Francis is traveling to Mongolia at the end of the summer.

Pope Francis is warning the Vatican’s missionary fundraisers not to allow financial corruption to creep into their work.

Pope Francis has asked aides to get to the bottom of how at least $17 million was transferred from the Vatican’s U.S.-based missionary fundraising coffers into an impact investing vehicle run by a priest.

The Vatican No. 2 says a fever that a fatigued Pope Francis developed was owed to the fact that the pope greeted a huge crowd of people.

Pope Francis has tapped an Argentine bishop with years of ministry in the country’s prisons as his successor as archbishop of Buenos Aires.

Pope Francis' weekly general audience often gives ordinary people rare access to the pope.

Pope Francis and the Coptic Orthodox pope have delivered a joint blessing from St. Peter’s Square.

The recently ousted head of the Vatican's main charitable organization is breaking six months of silence to denounce his removal as a “brutal power grab.”.

The Holy See’s No. 2 official has confirmed the existence of a Vatican peace “mission” to try to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Pope Francis has decided to give women the right to vote at an upcoming meeting of bishops.

Pope Francis has publicly defended St. John Paul II, slamming as “offensive and baseless” what he called recent insinuations about the late pontiff.

Pope Francis was presiding over Easter vigil Mass at the Vatican.

Pope Francis, hospitalized recently with bronchitis, has skipped the traditional Good Friday nighttime procession at the Colosseum because of chilly weather in Rome.

Pope Francis has washed and dried the feet of 12 residents of a Rome juvenile prison in a Holy Thursday rite symbolizing humility.

Pope Francis has been discharged from the Rome hospital where he was treated for bronchitis.

The Vatican has formally repudiated the “Doctrine of Discovery.”.

The Vatican says Pope Francis will be hospitalized for several days for treatment of a pulmonary infection after experiencing difficulty breathing in recent days.

Pope Francis is seeking to promote legal migration routes to Europe as an alternative to smuggling operations that he says have turned the Mediterranean into a “cemetery.”.

The Vatican has closed its embassy in Nicaragua after the country's government proposed suspending diplomatic relations.

Pope Francis says there's a risk that a reform process in the German church could become “ideological."

Pope Francis is lamenting that the use of guns by civilians to defend themselves is becoming a “habit.”.

The Vatican is allowing the public to visit the new tomb of Pope Benedict XVI under St. Peter's Basilica.

Pope Benedict XVI held one of the world’s highest—profile positions but once expressed a desire to be “hidden to the world.”.

Pope Francis has praised Pope Emeritus’ Benedict XVI’s “acute and gentle thought” on the final day of public viewing of his body in St. Peter’s Basilica before his funeral.

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s longtime personal secretary has written a tell-all book that is coming out this month.