Ecological sin was discussed at length during Synod of Bishops for the Amazon in October

Pope Francis had slapped a pilgrim's hand in an incident that quickly went viral on Twitter. Departing from his prepared text the next day, he said that "love makes us patient. We often lose our patience; me, too, and I apologize for my bad example last night."

For our New Year’s Day episode of "Inside the Vatican," the hosts look back at some of the biggest Vatican stories of 2019.

Well, at least 10 of them.

"Women and Francis" is the theme of the January 2020 issue of Women-Church-World, a monthly supplement to L'Osservatore Romano. It was released Dec. 28.

Seeing Pope Francis as spiritual director means seeing that the pope takes himself less seriously than do his critics and defenders.