Pope Francis

Pope Francis walks through Rome’s deserted streets amid coronavirus lockdown

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Pope Francis defied Italian government advice to stay indoors and today walked to church through Rome’s deserted streets to pray for the end of coronavirus. The Catholic leader had earlier delivered a blessing from his balcony window above an eerily empty St Peter’s Square, which has been closed to worshippers as part of the country’s … Read more

Coronavirus Italy: Rome’s churches remain open amid outbreak

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Rome is set to reopen some of its Catholic churches after an order for their closure to slow Italy’s outbreak of coronavirus was disputed by Pope Francis, who called the move ‘drastic’.  Cardinal Angelo De Donatis has today issued a new decree, stating that some of Rome’s churches will stay open, despite his initial order to … Read more

Priests keep their distance from Pope Francis amid coronavirus lockdown

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Catholic priests kept their distance from Pope Francis over coronavirus fears today as Italy’s 3ft safety rule reached the Vatican. Francis held an audience in his private library with his clerical translators sitting a yard apart – the distance which Italy is demanding in public spaces to stop the spread of the virus.  St Peter’s … Read more

The Pope urges priests to visit coronavirus sufferers

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Pope Francis today urged Catholic priests to visit people suffering from coronavirus despite a ban on most travel across Italy. Francis prayed that clergymen would ‘have the courage to go out and go to the sick people’ as he celebrated Mass by himself at the Vatican this morning.  The service in the chapel of Francis’ … Read more

Pope delivers Sunday prayers via livestream as Italy is put into lockdown amid coronavirus crisis

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Pope delivers Sunday prayers via livestream as Italy is put into lockdown after 36 people die in a single day – bringing the toll to 233  The 83-year-old pontiff broke with centuries of tradition to live stream prayers Wanted to prevent crowds going to Saint Peter’s Square for Angelus Prayer Coronavirus infections in Italy has … Read more

Pope Francis will deliver Sunday prayers by livestream to keep crowds away from Saint Peter’s Square

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Pope Francis will deliver Sunday prayers by livestream to keep crowds away from Saint Peter’s Square as Italy battles coronavirus The 83-year-old pontiff broke with centuries of tradition to live stream prayers Wants to prevent crowds going to Saint Peter’s Square for Angelus Prayer Coronavirus infections in Italy has jumped to 4,636, with 148 dead   … Read more

Vatican opens archives to discover why Pope Pius XII stayed silent on Nazis’ extermination of Jews

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Historians will today begin combing the archives of the world’s most contentious pope, hoping to discover why Pius XII stayed silent during the Holocaust. More than 200 researchers applied for permission to settle in one of the small studies of the Vatican Apostolic Archives to begin poring over millions of letters and documents the Vatican kept … Read more

MICHAEL GOVE: Britain can use its recovered sovereignty to be a force for good in the world 

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We are living, Pope Francis has said, not so much through an era of change as a change of era – one in which expectations and opportunities have been transformed. The financial crisis and other failures of leadership from a past generation of political and business leaders have turned people against distant and unaccountable power-brokers. … Read more

Pope Francis cancels official engagements for third day in a row in coronavirus-hit Italy 

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Pope Francis cancels official engagements for third day in a row with apparent cold symptoms in coronavirus-hit Italy The 83-year-old as never cancelled so many official audiences during his papacy Francis last appeared in public on Wednesday, when he was seen to be coughing It comes as coronavirus has now infected more than 800 people … Read more