American Peruvian Pope Souvenirs Stalled as Vatican Retailers Await Sacred License

With pilgrims flooding Rome for the Jubilee Year, souvenir stands near St. Peter’s Square are stocked with every pope except the one currently leading the Catholic Church. Two months after his election, León XIV’s official image still hasn’t been...

Vatican Assembles Independent Tribunal to Try Former Jesuit Marko Rupnik

(ZENIT News / Rome, 07.06.2025).- In a move that underscores the Vatican’s stated commitment to transparency and justice in the face of clerical abuse allegations, the Holy See has formally constituted a canonical tribunal to adjudicate the case...

Leo High School’s Choir Wowed The ‘America’s Got Talent’ Judges — And They’re Just Getting Started

AUBURN GRESHAM — When most singers perform in front of Simon Cowell, they’re filled with trepidation. But Kristol Bell, a junior at Leo High School in Auburn Gresham, walked onto the “America’s Got Talent” stage with confidence. “It wasn’t really...

Artificial Intelligence challenges ‘tranquility of order’, says Pope

Humanity is at a crossroads and facing the immense potential generated by the digital revolution driven by Artificial Intelligence (AI), according to a message from Pope Leo XIV. In a letter sent to experts on the pontiff’s behalf by the Vatican...

Great power and great fragility: The mysterious weight of the Vatican

In an interview, French journalist Loup Besmond de Senneville talks about the popes, and the Vatican's significant "soft power" combined with "fragility." Stationed in Rome from 2020 to 2024 for the French newspaper La Croix, journalist Loup...

Meloni Should Lead the Way on Ukraine’s Economic Recovery

Italy will host the fourth annual Ukraine Recovery Conference (URC) in Rome on July 10-11. Past recovery conferences have been held in Lugano (2022), London (2023), and Berlin (2024), but none produced meaningful results. Rome 2025 can be...

An American Pope: Leo XIV has already become an influential political figure

This was the long road that brought American Catholics to the heights of power in the U.S., while also leading to their core dilemma: Can one be both a good Catholic and a good American? The foundations of American identity are the beliefs in...

Pope Leo XIV starts summer vacation away from Vatican

The curious case of Father Freddy, a former South Side pastor accused of child sex abuse

Is the Rev. Freddy Washington a child molester or not? The Catholic priest is part of a religious order known as the Spiritans, and once ministered on the South Side and attended the same Catholic graduate school in Hyde Park as Pope Leo XIV....

Local credit unions will beat the pillar banks in the race to offer customers instant transfers

These instant transfers are part of the Single Euro Payments Area (Sepa) system, which was designed to simplify euro-denominated cross-border payments within the EU and make them as fast and simple as domestic transfers. Typically, Sepa transfers...

Russia batters Ukraine with more than 700 drones in record attack

In short: (ABC-Australia) Russia has fired a record number of drones at Ukraine, just hours after US President Donald Trump criticized Russia’s president Vladimir Putin. These latest attacks came ahead of a meeting between Ukraine’s president...

How a Belarusian Blogger and Journalist Discovered the Facts of Catholicism

Asya Poplavskaya encountered Christ in the course of her career. Belarus has significantly lower wages compared to Western European countries. Most people can’t afford traveling or dining out at restaurants. But Asya Poplavskaya was an exception....

25 Historical Trivia and Hot Takes: July 2025

Intro To Historical Trivia 1. When you have no other ideas of what to write about in your blog you can always write about historical trivia. You can tweet short or blog long about it. Historical Trivia is a way to remember the interesting tidbits...

Flamingos stir up trouble in Italy’s flooded risotto fields

JOLANDA DI SAVOIA, Italy (AP) — An unusual pest is ravaging crops and irking farmers in northeastern Italy: the flamingo. Flocks of these relatively recent immigrants have set their hungry sights on the flooded fields that produce rice for risotto...

Vatican Tribute Honors Salvadoran Diplomat Who Saved Thousands During the Holocaust.

The Embassy of El Salvador to the Holy See recently marked the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II with a special tribute to Colonel José Arturo Castellanos, a Salvadoran diplomat who saved thousands of Jews during the Holocaust. The event...

Vatican names panel of independent judges for trial of disgraced ex-Jesuit Marko Rupnik

(OSV News) -- The Vatican has officially named the judges who will oversee the canonical trial of Father Marko Rupnik, the disgraced Slovenian priest and artist accused of sexually, spiritually and psychologically abusing more than two dozen...

Vatican officially names panel of judges for canonical trial of Father Rupnik

Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, speaks to reporters at the Vatican Sept. 19, 2024. The cardinal confirmed July 3, 2025, the Vatican has officially named a panel of judges for the canonical...

Zelensky government hails Trump’s resumption of weapons deliveries

President Donald Trump meets with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky at Trump Tower, Sept. 27, 2024, in New York. [AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson]In a complete about-face from the position his administration declared last week, United States...

Vatican leak undermines Pope Francis and inflames debate over Latin Mass

Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our...

Vatican document leak reignites Latin Mass debate

Documents have emerged, in what appears a leak at the Vatican, which indicate that the majority of Catholic bishops did not support the move by Pope Francis to restrict the Latin Mass. The texts from the Vatican’s doctrine office were posted...