When a pope dies or resigns, the Catholic Church follows an ancient, secretive process called the conclave to elect his ...

The Chicago-born pontiff—the new spiritual leader of 1.3 billion Catholics and the proprietor in trust of the great art and ...

A change in popes is a complicated process, with centuries-old rituals involving the transition in leadership for both the spiritual head of the global Catholic Church and the Vatican’s head of state ...

Mistakes were made, apparently. ‘Woe be unto the person who decided to do it the way that they did it,’ one expert says.

headquarters of the 1.4 billion-strong Catholic Church. Starting Wednesday, the faithful will be invited to the church to pay their final respects to Francis, whose body will lay in state on the main ...

Loran Smith on why a new UGA Libraries award honoring Vince and Barbara Dooley is fitting for the late, legendary football ...

Francis has broken with recent papal tradition by choosing to be buried in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore instead of St ...

The Associated Press reported that the choice reflected Pope Francis’s “veneration of an icon of the Virgin Mary ... writes the Catholic News agency, and “the chosen location may be a ...

All eyes turned to St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, the heart of the Catholic Church and home ... Baroque, and Renaissance architecture, reflecting centuries of faith and artistic achievement.

The 16th century church, built over the traditional tomb of the apostle St. Peter, is one of the largest Catholic basilicas ... in state on the main altar. The Renaissance masterpiece was built ...