Popes Archives

Francis’s shot at Queen illustrates love/hate bond between popes and rock

News Analysis, Vatican
Feb 28, 2019

When Pope Francis ripped lyrics by Queen and Florence + The Machine on Tuesday, it was the latest chapter in the ambivalent relationship between popes and pop.

Push to rehabilitate past pope illustrates great truth about the present

News Analysis
Feb 12, 2019

The effort by a group in Spain to rehabilitate anti-pope Benedict XIII confirms that today’s judgments may not be the last word.

Sorry, but Francis-Viganò saga nothing new in Vatican scandals

Vatican
Nov 21, 2018

While Pope Francis is facing monumental challenges on the clerical abuse scandals and allegations that he covered up the sexual misconduct of ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, history shows he is not the first pontiff to be inovolved in a major crisis.

Groups to discuss Vatican edicts’ impact on Native Americans

Associated Press, Church in the Americas
Aug 19, 2018

Members of the Six Nations of the Iroquois and experts in Native American legal and civil rights issues are hosting a conference in central New York for discussions on 500-year-old Vatican edicts whose impacts are still felt today.

Vatican newspaper chimes in, finally, on ‘The Young Pope’

Associated Press, Vatican
Oct 1, 2017

The Vatican’s newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, finally wrote about the Vatican-inspired series “The Young Pope” starring Jude Law as an unlikely American pope. Editor-in-chief, Gian Maria Vian, said he didn’t want to write about it during the time it was airing, because “They wanted us to either bless it or excommunicate it, and I didn’t want to play that game.”

Statue a reminder that pope criticism is just Romans being Romans

Vatican
Feb 16, 2017

Rome woke up to posters poking fun at Pope Francis on February 4. While many were shocked by the personal attacks on the pope, Romans were reminded of the century old tradition of criticism, satire and vicious comments directed at the pontificate embodied by the statue of Pasquino.