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Pope Francis appeared to take a shot at Hungary on Wednesday, insisting “no country can exempt itself” from the obligation to take in migrants. On Tuesday, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán rejected a ruling by the European Union’s (EU) Court of Justice that his government had “failed to fulfil its obligations” to relax its immigration laws. “We will maintain the existing regime, even if the European court ordered us to change it,” Orbán said Tuesday in his end-of-year news conference. “The reality is that we have to stop the migrants at the borders,” he declared. “This can be solved by...

ROME — The Vatican suggested Thursday a Biden presidency might inject new life into the stagnant Paris Climate Accord after President Trump pulled the U.S. out of the deal in 2017. The Vatican COVID-19 Commission announced Thursday that it is organizing a webinar next week in preparation for a December 12 global climate summit to be co-hosted by the United Nations and the UK to mark the fifth anniversary of the Paris Agreement. In its preparatory document, the Vatican team lamented the lack of initiative and commitment around the Paris climate goals, something it said needs to gain renewed momentum...

Pope Francis took advantage Sunday of his first public blessing since the coronavirus outbreak to give a shout-out to the “great country” of China. “Let us join spiritually with the Catholic faithful in China, who today celebrate, with particular devotion, the feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary, help of Christians and Patron of China, revered in the Sheshan shrine in Shanghai,” the pope told pilgrims gathered in Saint Peter’s Square for his Regina Caeli message and apostolic blessing. “I would like to go to Beijing,” Francis said. “I love China.”

Vatican tried to connect climate change with human trafficking by claiming that global warming is responsible for creating “environmental refugees” who flee their homes because of drought or other climate-caused natural disasters

ASUNCIÓN, Paraguay — His speeches can blend biblical fury with apocalyptic doom. Pope Francis does not just criticize the excesses of global capitalism. He compares them to the “dung of the devil.” He does not simply argue that systemic “greed for money” is a bad thing. He calls it a “subtle dictatorship” that “condemns and enslaves men and women.” Having returned to his native Latin America, Francis has renewed his left-leaning critiques on the inequalities of capitalism, describing it as an underlying cause of global injustice, and a prime cause of climate change. Francis escalated that line last week when...

Vatican officials appear to have been flummoxed after Pope Francis was presented with a communist crucifix depicting Jesus nailed to a hammer and sickle by Bolivia’s president Evo Morales. The gift from the leftwing leader caused an immediate stir among conservative Catholics who said the pontiff was being manipulated for ideological reasons. The response of the pope was less clear. (...)

Pope Francis wraps up the first leg of a three-nation South American pilgrimage Wednesday after issuing an impassioned call for a new economic and ecological world order where the goods of the Earth are shared by everyone, not just exploited by the rich