Many years ago, when Oliver North was running for the Senate from Virginia, I received a call from a reporter. She told me that some church groups in the commonwealth were praying for North’s election. Then she asked if their behavior violated the separation of church and state. I explained to her that as separationism is a rule of constitutional law, only the state and not the church can violate it. My answer got on her nerves.

Pope Francis washed and kissed the feet of Muslim, Christian and Hindu refugees Thursday and declared them all children of the same God, as he performed a gesture of welcome and brotherhood at a time of increased anti-Muslim sentiment following the Brussels attacks. Francis denounced the carnage as a “gesture of war” carried out by blood-thirsty people beholden to the weapons industry during an Easter Week Mass with asylum-seekers at a shelter in Castelnuovo di Porto, outside Rome.

The Vatican has put a stop to the work of international auditors just months after they were hired to review the city-state’s bookkeeping — a move said to have surprised Pope Francis’ handpicked financial czar, Cardinal George Pell.

At the Vatican Observatory, these women were part of a global attempt to map the night sky.

Pope Francis denounced what he called the ideologically twisted and planned "genocide" of Armenians by Ottoman-era Turks a century ago as he arrived in Armenia on Friday for a deeply symbolic visit to mark the centenary of the massacre and pay homage to the country's steadfast Christian faith.  In the most carefully watched speech of his three-day trip, Francis ad-libbed the politically charged word "genocide" to his prepared text that had conspicuously left it out, listing the Armenian genocide alongside the Holocaust and Stalinism. 

Pope Francis said on Sunday that Christians and the Roman Catholic Church should seek forgiveness from gay people for the way they had treated them. In an hour-long conversation with reporters on the plane taking him back to Rome from Armenia,the pontiff was asked if he agreed with recent comments by a German Roman Catholic cardinal that the Church should apologise to gay people.

Pope Francis has lamented that children are being taught at school that gender can be a choice, adding that his predecessor, Benedict XVI has labelled current times "the epoch of sin against God the Creator." Francis weighed in with his view on gender and what he said was that of the emeritus pontiff while meeting privately last week with bishops from Poland during his pilgrimage there. The Vatican released a transcript Tuesday of those closed-door remarks.

Pope Francis called on Thursday for concerted action against environmental degradation and climate change, renewing a fierce attack on consumerism and financial greed which, he said, were threatening the planet. A year after publishing the first papal document dedicated to the environment, the pope urged Christians to make the defense of nature a core part of their faith, adding it to the seven "works of mercy" they are meant to perform.

Journalism based on gossip or rumors is a form of "terrorism" and media that stereotype entire populations or foment fear of migrants are acting destructively, Pope Francis said on Thursday. Francis, who made his comments in an address to leaders of Italy's national journalists' guild, said reporters had to go the extra mile to seek the truth, particularly in an age of round-the-clock news coverage. Spreading rumors is an example of "terrorism, of how you can kill a person with your tongue", he said.

n the US, over the past 10 years, the number of official priest exorcists has more than quadrupled from 12 to 50. But for two of America’s most active exorcists – Father Gary Thomas, whose training in Rome was chronicled in Matt Baglio's book The Rite: The Making of a Modern Exorcist, and Father Vincent Lampert, whose work was depicted on Paranormal Witness – it is an ongoing struggle to keep up with the demand.

Pope Francis kisses a crucifix as he arrives for a meeting with priests and seminarians in the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Virgin, in Tbilisi, Georgia, Saturday, Oct. 1, 2016. The pontiff is traveling to Georgia and Azerbaijan for a three-day visit. On his second and final day in Georgia before heading to Azerbaijan, Pope Francis on Saturday said he sees a "global war" against marriage in the form of the "theory of gender," which he said seeks to destroy the family not with weapons but with ideas.

A new doctrinal rule requires Roman Catholics to store cremains at cemeteries. By Erin Blakemore.

Pope Francis has extended indefinitely the power of Catholic priests to forgive abortions, making the announcement in an apostolic letter released Monday. It continues a special dispensation granted last year for the duration of the Year of Mercy -- which finished Sunday -- which gave all priests, rather than just bishops and specially designated confessors, the power to absolve the sin of abortion.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny was in the Vatican today where he invited Pope Francis to come to Ireland. The last Pontiff to travel to Ireland was Pope John Paul II in 1979. However it appears that lengthy gap will now be bridged with Pope Francis likely to travel here in 2018.

The theories of evolution and the Big Bang are real and God is not “a magician with a magic wand”, Pope Francis has declared. Speaking at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, the Pope made comments which experts said put an end to the “pseudo theories” of creationism and intelligent design that some argue were encouraged by his predecessor, Benedict XVI. Francis explained that both scientific theories were not incompatible with the existence of a creator – arguing instead that they “require it”.

In his annual Christmas address to the Vatican bureaucracy, Pope Francis on Thursday warned that those engaged in “malicious resistance” to the reform of the Roman Curia are inspired by the devil. It marked the third consecutive year that the pope has slammed the highest levels of the Catholic Church’s administration in his annual holiday greeting at the Vatican.

Birth of Jesus should remind world of the suffering of children today, pontiff says in Christmas Eve address at Vatican

A branch of the fast-food chain McDonald's has opened in Vatican City, the seat of the Catholic Church, despite protests from residents and cardinals. The branch opened in a building belonging to the Holy See that rented out rooms to the US giant just metres from St Peter's Square.

Pope Francis encouraged women attending a ceremony in the Sistine Chapel on Sunday to feel free to breastfeed their children in the church. "The ceremony is a little long, someone's crying because he's hungry. That's the way it is," the pontiff said. "You mothers, go ahead and breastfeed, without fear. Just like the Virgin Mary nursed Jesus," he told worshippers attending an annual ceremony commemorating the baptism of Jesus.

Unshaken by a blessing from Pope Francis, Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has hit back at priests and bishops critical of his war on drugs, accusing clergymen of homosexuality, child molesting, hypocrisy and corruption. “You asked for it,” he said. “You expose me, fine. I expose you. Why? When you commit mistakes it's OK, but when we do, no? Bullshit. That’s stupid,” the president said during a speech to newly-promoted police officers at Malacañan on Thursday.