Vatican revamps norms to evaluate visions of Mary as it adapts to internet age and combats hoaxers

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican on Friday radically reformed its process for evaluating alleged visions of the Virgin Mary, weeping statues and other seemingly supernatural phenomena, putting the brakes on making definitive declarations unless the event is obviously fabricated. The...

Vatican overhauls process to evaluate claims of apparitions, weeping statues to adapt to Internet age, punish hoaxers

Vatican Museums staff challenge the pope with a legal bid for better terms and treatment

ROME (AP) — Forty-nine employees of the Vatican Museums have filed a class-action complaint with the Vatican administration demanding better seniority, leave and overtime benefits in an unusual, public challenge to Pope Francis’ governance. The complaint, dated April 23 and made...

Pope urges Italians to have babies as a measure of hope for future

ROME (AP) — Pope Francis pressed his campaign Friday to urge Italians to have children, calling for long-term policies to help families and warning that the country’s demographic crisis was threatening the future. “The number of births is the first indicator of the hope of a...

Holy Year or holy mess, Vatican and Rome begin dash to 2025 Jubilee with papal bull, construction

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican crossed a key milestone Thursday in the runup to its 2025 Jubilee with the promulgation of the official decree establishing the Holy Year. It's a once-every-quarter-century event that is expected to bring some 32 million pilgrims to Rome and has already brought...

Pope Francis appoints new bishop in Tennessee after former bishop's resignation under pressure

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Pope Francis has appointed Reverend James Mark Beckman as Bishop of Knoxville, Tennessee, almost a year after the previous bishop resigned under pressure following claims he mishandled sex abuse allegations. The Vatican announced the appointment in its...

Expanding clergy sexual abuse probe targets New Orleans Catholic church leaders

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Authorities have expanded an investigation of clergy sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church in New Orleans to include senior church officials suspected of shielding predatory priests for decades and failing to report their crimes to law enforcement. Louisiana...

Pope visits Venice to speak to the artists and inmates behind the Biennale's must-see prison show

VENICE, Italy (AP) — Venice has always been a place of contrasts, of breathtaking beauty and devastating fragility, where history, religion, art and nature have collided over the centuries to produce an otherworldly gem of a city. But even for a place that prides itself on its culture of unusual...

Pope to bring his call for ethical artificial intelligence to G7 summit in June in southern Italy

ROME (AP) — Pope Francis is taking his call for artificial intelligence to be developed and used according to ethical lines to the Group of 7 industrialized nations. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni announced Friday that Francis had accepted her invitation to attend the G7...

Cisco Systems joins Microsoft, IBM in Vatican pledge to ensure ethical use and development of AI

ROME (AP) — Tech giant Cisco Systems on Wednesday joined Microsoft and IBM in signing onto a Vatican-sponsored pledge to ensure artificial intelligence is developed and used ethically and to benefit the common good. Cisco Systems chief executive Chuck Robbins signed the document,...