As shocking as it may be to some observers and Catholics in the Global North, Pope Francis' informal exorcism neatly captures the rise of the Global South, where prayers for deliverance from evil are common Catholic currency.

Wouldn't you assume that the newly established Church would want its devotees to immerse themselves in the sanctioned New Testament, especially since the Church went to great lengths to eliminate competing Gospels?

By Philip Pullella VATICAN CITY, May 18 (Reuters) - Pope Francis shared personal moments with 200,000 people on Saturday, ...

Having closely monitored the development of Saint Death's burgeoning cult on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, I had expected a condemnation by the Vatican, although I am somewhat surprised that it came before any such statement made by U.S. bishops.

VATICAN CITY -- If Pope Francis is feeling a bit homesick these days, he need only go downstairs to St. Peter's Square. The Vatican on Friday opened ...

VATICAN CITY -- Pope Francis has denounced the global financial system, blasting the "cult of money" that he says is tyrannizing the poor and turning ...

MEXICO CITY — The Vatican's culture minister says Mexico's folk Death Saint is a blasphemous symbol that shouldn't be part of any religion. Car...

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Roman Catholics in Puerto Rico rallied Wednesday around an archbishop who is apparently under pressure from the Vatican ...

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican on Tuesday denied there were any internal divisions over its crackdown on the largest umbrella group of U.S. nuns aft...

The choice before our bishops now is whether to continue a divisive battle that will only diminish their own authority, or to follow where the laity has led.

The sad fact is that even many theologians, Catholic and other, have only a generic grasp of the council as a historical happening, and, hence, are led to pronounce judgments on it that are misleading and, generally, more negative than the council deserves.

The confluence of theological concerns, religious competition, new Latin American influence at the Vatican and media coverage have resulted in Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi's condemnation of the cult of Santa Muerte as the embodiment of Latin America's "culture of death."

When people think of the Vatican and World War II, they think immediately of Pius XII, the controversial pontiff between 1939 and 1958. But before him, there was a little-remembered pope, Pope Pius XI, who was loudly outspoken against the Nazis and was determined to call the world's attention to their atrocities.

VATICAN CITY -- The Vatican says it will hold a dialogue with nonbelievers in three Mexican cities next month. Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, who heads ...

Gen. Augusto Pinochet's military dictatorship was responsible for the deaths of as many as 3,200 people in Chile in the 1970s, but the Vatican dismiss...

Pope Francis now faces an institutional church in need of substantial rebuilding and reform: a deeply divided church theologically; an entrenched and flawed, some would say incompetent, Vatican bureaucracy; a legacy of decades of scandals (in particular pedophilia) and of deception by members of the hierarchy; and an exodus of Catholics in Europe and America.

I hope that Pope Francis will do what he can to work with Muslims and others in order to build an ark that will save this common humanity of ours. May God bless us all to be friends to one another.

The evidence is in, and it is clear: New Atheists have been a media success and a societal failure.