Cuban President Raul Castro met with Pope Francis at the Vatican, thanking the pontiff for his role in brokering an historic rapprochement between Havana and Washington.
Olga Lucia Alvarez says it is her vocation to be a Catholic priest, and she is not going to let gender or excommunication stop her from preaching the gospel.
Two years after Pope Francis swept into the Vatican vowing to shake up the Church, his opponents are playing a waiting game as they seek to put the brakes on his reform drive.
Pope Francis denounced the "intolerable brutality" being inflicted on Christians and other minorities in Iraq and Syria by Islamic State group militants.
Pope Francis will bring his message of peace and compassion to politically gridlocked Washington in September when he becomes the first pontiff to address the US Congress.
Activists lashed out at the Catholic Church's failure at a major synod to open its doors to gay people, but praised for getting bishops to confront "taboos."
Pope Francis was set to sort his allies from his enemies with a Vatican vote on a document drafted opening the Catholic Church's doors to remarried divorcees and gays.