Immediately after his election on March 13, 2013, Pope Francis told himself, “Jorge, do not change, continue being yourself because to change at your age would be ridiculous.” He revealed this interesting personal detail in a wide-ranging exclusive multi-part interview with Elisabetta Pi

History was made in the Vatican on Dec. 2, when Pope Francis and other leaders of the world’s main religions—Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Judaism—signed a joint declaration to work together to eradicate modern slavery in its various forms by the year 2020. Pope Franc

The shooting of Michael Brown by a police officer in Ferguson, Mo., exposed long-ignored, long-simmering tensions in the United States. Ferguson amounts to a kind of national Rorschach test on race. Polls show blacks and whites hold decidedly different views about the unarmed teenager’s death.

The Catholic Church seemed to throw its support behind what is, in Europe at least, an accelerating movement toward the abolition of nuclear weapons during the first day, Dec. 8, of the Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons.In a message to the conference participants from P

In Istanbul on Nov. 30, Pope Francis stated unequivocally that “full communion” was his goal with the 300-million-member Orthodox churches. He added that the only condition for achieving that unity is “the shared profession of faith.” Significantly, seeking to overcome suspic

Catholic, Anglican, Sunni and Shiite leaders vowed to do all they can to combat “ugly and hideous” distortions of religion and to involve more women—often the first victims of violence—in official interreligious dialogues. Holding the third Christian-Muslim Summit in Rome on