Inside The Vatican

This summer, Pope Francis made the controversial decision to place significant restrictions on the celebration of the Tridentine Latin Mass. He said that a survey of the world’s bishops showed that John Paul II and Benedict XVI’s generosity in allowing the pre-Vatican II Mass to be celebrated had been “exploited to widen the gaps, reinforce the divergences, and encourage disagreements that injure...

Pope Francis has issued a motu proprio–an authoritative declaration made on the Pope’s personal initiative–to restrict the celebration of the pre-Vatican II Latin Mass in the Catholic Church. The decision overrides and reverses a previous decree of Pope Benedict XVI, who allowed priests to celebrate the pre-Vatican II Mass without limitation. Francis has become increasingly concerned that the cele...

Pope Francis is in the hospital recovering from a scheduled intestinal surgery he had on Sunday afternoon, July 4. According to Vatican statements based on the pope’s doctors’ reports, his recovery is going well and he can expect to be in the hospital for about a week. The pope underwent surgery for symptomatic stenotic diverticulitis, which is a colon condition that causes part of the intestine t...

No, it’s not a schism. On this special deep dive episode of “Inside the Vatican,” host Colleen Dulle looks at the German synodal way: What is it, why is it happening, and why do some critics think it could lead to a schism in the Catholic Church? This episode features interviews with: Bishop Franz-Josef Overbeck of Essen, Germany, a participant in the synodal path and a leader of the path’s subgro...

Take Inside the Vatican’s Listener Survey! On May 21, Cardinal Reinhard Marx, the archbishop of Munich and Freising and a top advisor to Pope Francis, submitted his resignation to the pope, saying he wanted to take “institutional responsibility” for the sexual abuse crisis. “It is important to me to share the responsibility for the catastrophe of the sexual abuse by Church officials over the past...

After 17 years of preparation, a new edition of volume VI of the Code of Canon Law—the Vatican’s penal code—has been published, the first new edition since 1983. About two-thirds of the canons, or laws, in the volume have been updated, and a number of new canons have been added, most significantly in the areas of sexual abuse and requiring penalties for violations of the law. On this episode of “I...

The upcoming “synod on synodality” will look different from past synods, the Vatican announced last month: Instead of an event in Rome in 2022, the synod will be a process beginning on the diocesan level this fall, continuing on a continental level in 2022 and ending in Rome in 2023, discussing “communion, participation, and mission” within the church. This week on “Inside the Vatican,” host Colle...

With summer just around the corner, Inside the Vatican is bringing you a special episode: our Pope Francis summer reading list. Papal biographer Austen Ivereigh joins Colleen Dulle for a discussion on three books that have shaped Pope Francis (and that he loves to quote): The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni, Lord of the World by Robert Hugh Benson, and the short story “The Garden of Forking Paths”...

On Sunday, Pope Francis called for an immediate ceasefire to the violence that has escalated between Israeli and Palestinian forces, killing more than 200 people in Gaza and 10 in Israel, according to the most recent statistics. The Vatican has long supported a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but Pope Francis’ goals also include limiting the sale of arms by countries outsid...

It’s been 500 years since St. Ignatius suffered the cannonball injury that would pave the way to his conversion—from an ambitious young soldier rumored to be dating a princess, to leaving it all to found the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits. To commemorate that 500th anniversary, the Jesuits have declared an Ignatian Year, remembering their roots and announcing new initiatives for their future. So th...

The Vatican stepped into the U.S. bishops’ ongoing debate over giving Communion to pro-choice Catholic politicians last week, issuing a letter May 7 to every bishop in America urging them to undertake a two-part dialogue process before drafting any national guidelines on the issue. Up to now, the decision over whether to give a pro-choice politician Communion has been up to the local bishop, with...

Last week, Pope Francis signed two big changes to Vatican law: First, he implemented a sweeping anti-corruption decree that limits the gifts Vatican employees can receive to $50; then, he updated a previous legal reform to remove bishops’ and cardinals’ special rights in Vatican courts. For most of the church’s history, bishops and cardinals could only be judged by the pope. Pope Francis changed t...

Almost two months after his first papal trip since spring 2020, Pope Francis has set his sights on a few more international visits before the end of the year: To Hungary and Slovakia, Cyprus and Greece, Lebanon and Glasgow. On this week’s episode of “Inside the Vatican,” America’s veteran Vatican correspondent Gerard O’Connell and host Colleen Dulle dig into what we know about each trip and what i...

When Father John Wester received a call just before 8 a.m. Mass, he had no idea it would be the nuncio, the pope’s ambassador, phoning to tell him he would be the next auxiliary bishop of San Francisco. Archbishop Wester’s story is not unusual. Most bishops are appointed without ever knowing they were being considered for the job and are caught by surprise when chosen. The bishop selection process...

Ten years ago, it would have been impossible to imagine the pope having the kind of strong relationship with a top Muslim leader that Pope Francis has with the Grand Imam Ahmed Al-Tayeb. Back in 2019, the two signed the groundbreaking document on Human Fraternity together in Abu Dhabi, but a new book by the Muslim judge, Mohamed Abdel Salam, who was intimately involved in the process of putting th...

Pope Francis celebrated a private Holy Thursday Mass at the apartment of Cardinal Angelo Becciu, the high-ranking prelate whose resignation Pope Francis ordered last September. The dismissal was widely believed to be linked to the Vatican’s $200 million London real estate scandal. Most years, Pope Francis has left St. Peter’s Basilica and opted to commemorate the Last Supper in prisons or refugee...

Why does the Vatican advocate for democracy in Myanmar but not Hong Kong? This week on “Inside the Vatican,” host Colleen Dulle and Vatican correspondent Gerard O’Connell discuss Gerry’s wide-ranging interview with Vatican Secretary for Relations with States, Archbishop Paul Gallagher. In the interview, Gerry and Archbishop Gallagher discussed the Vatican’s strategies in China and its hopes for th...

Church historian and Villanova University professor Massimo Faggioli joins host Colleen Dulle to discuss the Vatican’s recent guidelines banning private, individual Masses in St. Peter’s Basilica and restricting celebrations of the Traditional Latin Mass (officially called the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite) to one chapel in the basilica’s crypt. Dr. Faggioli explains how the change is part...

Last week’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith document marked a departure from Pope Francis’ usual pastoral tone on LGBT issues, even though the pope had approved its publication. This weekend, the pope spoke against “theoretical condemnations,” posing “gestures of love” as an alternative. America Vatican correspondent Gerard O’Connell spoke with several Vatican officials who told them th...

This week, a statement from the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith made global headlines, saying that the church cannot bless gay unions and reiterating that they are “not ordered to the Creator’s plan.” The document said Pope Francis “assented” to its publication, which disappointed LGBT Catholics who had come to appreciate the pope’s more supportive tone. But how closely did Pope Francis...

Pope Francis visited Iraq March 5-8, and America’s Vatican correspondent Gerard O’Connell traveled with him. Fresh off the trip, Gerry joins host Colleen Dulle on “Inside the Vatican” to discuss what it was like to travel with the pope on his riskiest trip yet. Pope Francis was determined to visit Iraq despite the increases in violence and coronavirus cases there because he wanted to encourage Ira...

Pope Francis takes off for Baghdad on Friday, March 5. Once he arrives in Iraq, he will zigzag the country at breakneck speed visiting civic and religious leaders and touring places that are still recovering from the destruction wrought by the Islamic State. Since ISIS’ takeover of the Nineveh Plain, the area where most Iraqi Christians lived, three-quarters of those Christians have left the count...

On Sunday, Pope Francis accepted the resignation of Cardinal Robert Sarah, the Guinean prelate with whom he has publicly clashed on a few occasions. Pope Francis was widely expected to accept Cardinal Sarah’s resignation soon after his 75th birthday in June, but the pope surprised Vatican watchers this week by declining to fill Cardinal Sarah’s now-vacant post as head of the Congregation for Divin...

Pope Francis’ trip to Iraq, scheduled for March 5-8, has been thrown into further question in recent days. Following the discovery of the new UK-based strain of the novel coronavirus, Iraqi authorities closed businesses and places of worship, including those where the pope was expected to hold events during his visit. A rocket attack near the Erbil airport on Feb. 15 has also heightened security c...

For the first time, a woman will have the right to vote in the Synod of Bishops. Sister Nathalie Becquart, a Xaviere sister, became the first woman to be named undersecretary of the Vatican’s Synod of Bishops, a position previously reserved to bishops. As is customary for the undersecretary, Sister Becquart is expected to be a voting member of the 2022 synod. Until now, women have been barred from...