By Anthony Faiola / Stefano Pitrelli contributed to this report
VATICAN CITY — At one point during a major summit of the Roman Catholic hierarchy that ends this weekend, a senior conservative bishop took the floor inside the Vatican’s assembly hall and promptly charged his liberal peers with doing the devil’s work.
Continua la lettura di At Vatican synod: outreach, pushback and struggles over soul of the church
By Anthony Faiola / Stefano Pitrelli contributed to this report.
VATICAN CITY — On a sunny morning earlier this year, a camera crew entered a well-appointed apartment just outside the 9th-century gates of Vatican City. Pristinely dressed in the black robes and scarlet sash of the princes of the Roman Catholic Church, Wisconsin-born Cardinal Raymond Burke sat in his elaborately upholstered armchair and appeared to issue a warning to Pope Francis.
Continua la lettura di Conservative dissent is brewing inside the Vatican
By Anthony Faiola / Stefano Pitrelli contributed to this report.
NAPLES, Italy — The faithful here are still talking about Pope Francis and the holy blood.
On an official trip to this ancient city in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius, Pope Francis entered the local cathedral to pray to Januarius, the patron saint of Naples. Januarius’s 1,700-year-old dried blood is known to “spontaneously liquefy,” a phenomenon seen by true believers as a miraculous sign from above. Those gathered watched anxiously as Francis prayed before, then kissed, the ornate silver-and-glass reliquary containing the coagulated clot.
And lo and behold, the dark stain dissolved.