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US President Donald Trump appeared to have tued the page on a diplomatic row with Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni Tuesday as he landed in Ankara for a key NATO summit. ...

After the European Union significantly tightened its immigration policy earlier this month, 19 EU countries on Wednesday urged the European Commission to finance "retu hubs" outside the bloc for failed asylum-seekers. ...

Pope Leo XIV called on the Italian Church to develop a "culture of prevention" on clerical child sex abuse, after critics said nothing had changed in 30 years. ...

Italy is one of 15 EU member states who have sent a joint letter to the European Commission demanding a further tightening of the bloc's asylum policy, which will make it easier to transfer undocumented migrants to third countries, such as Rwanda, including when they are rescued at sea. ...

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni made frank comments about the Ukraine war as she was duped by Russian comedians pretending to be from the African Union Commission. ...

"The expansion of transport links between Europe and Asia is in itself a good thing -- as long as the autonomy and sovereignty of Europe is not endangered," the EU's budget commissioner, Gü...

"Our work has made us realise once again that the gravity of the scourge of the sexual abuse of minors is, and historically has been, a widespread phenomenon in all cultures and societies," he ...

Pope Francis celebrates a mass on Christmas eve on December 24, 2018 at St Peter's basilica in the Vatican. Photo: Tiziana Fabi/AFP. Pope Francis on Monday assailed the "insatiable greed" of today's c...

Pope Francis delivering the "Urbi et Orbi" message from the balcony of St Peter's basilica on December 25, 2018. Photo: VATICAN MEDIA / AFP. Pope Francis used his Christmas message Tuesday to appeal f...

The Church will never seek to hush up or not take seriously any case," thepope said in his aual address to the Church's goveing Curia at the Vatican. "Let it be clear that before these abominatio...

Former pope Benedict XVI celebrating his 90th birthday in 2017. Photo: Osservatore Romano/AFP Pope emeritus Benedict XVI hinted on Wednesday that he is nearing death and ready for his final "pilgrimage" at the age of 90. "In the slow decline of my physical strength, inteally, I am on a pilgrimage to the House [of the Lord]", Joseph Ratzinger wrote in a letter published in the Corriere della Sera daily, which had told him many readers were conceed about his health. The former pope, who will tu 91 in April, said he was moved that "so many readers want to know how this last period of his life is going". "It is a great grace for me to be surrounded, in this last point of a sometim...

Pope Francis pictured during his weekly general audience. Photo: Andreas Solaro/AFP Pope Francis waed on Wednesday against the temptation of fake news, drawing a parallel between ethically compromised joualism and the biblical tale of Adam, Eve, the snake and the forbidden fruit. In his aual World Communication Day message held on the feast day of Francis de Sales, the patron saint of joualists, the Pope referred to Eve being fooled by the snake as "the first fake news"."We need to unmask what could be called the 'snake-tactics' used by those who disguise themselves in order to strike," he said. Fake news" was popularised as a phrase by Donald Trump during his victorious 2016 US ...

Pope Francis has been given a two-wheeled Popemobile. Photo: Andreas Solaro/AFP The answer is Pope Francis on a bike, a prospect made tantalizingly possible by the pontiff's latest gift. Francis was presented with a customized racing bike on Wednesday by three-time world cycling champion Peter Sagan, who dropped off the bicycle during a visit to the Vatican. The speedy-looking two-wheeler came in the papal colours, gold and white, and was emblazoned with "Francesco". Peter Sagan (centre) with the Pope's bike.Photo: Andreas Solaro/AFP The Slovakian cyclist, who attended the Pope's weekly audience in St Peter's Square, also offered the signed jersey he wore as world champion. This is the ponti...

Luca Guadagnino, the Italian director of Call Me by Your Name. Photo: Robin Beck/AFPCall Me by Your Name, a film telling the story of a gay romance in the northe Italian countryside, has been nominated for four Oscars, including Best Picture. The English-language film, based on a novel by Egyptian-American author André Aciman, was written by James Ivory – of Merchant Ivory fame – and directed by an Italian, LucaGuadagnino. It is nominated for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay, as well as Best Actor for its young lead, Timothée Chalamet, and Best Original Song for Mystery of Love by Sufjan Stevens, who wrote three songs for the film. Shot on location in Crema, Lombardy, the film tells ...

A handout photo from Osservatore Romano shows Pope Francis waving at the crowd outside the Cathedral of Trujillo on Saturday. AFP PHOTO / OSSERVATORE ROMANOPope Francis on Saturday urged Latin America's faithful to fight rampant violent crime against women including murder, while holding mass in Trujillo, Peru's largest northe city. "I wish to invite you to combat a plague across our Latin American region: the numerous cases of violent crimes against women, from beatings to rape to murder," the visiting pontiff told thousands in Trujillo's main colonial-era square. Half of the 25 countries with the greatest number of murders of women are in Latin America, according to UN Women. In Argentina...

Pope Francis on Monday used his New Year homily to urge peace and understanding for migrants and refugees. "Let us not extinguish hope in their hearts or smother their expectations of peace," the leader of the world's estimated 1.2 billion Catholics said, marking the Church's World Day of Peace before millions of worshippers braving a rainswept Saint Peter's Square in the Vatican. Taking up the theme of the ongoing migrant crisis, the pontiff said they were "ready to risk their lives in their search for a peaceful future "which is a right for everyone" and which everyone should strive to ensure for all. ...

Pope Francis waves from the balcony of St Peter's Basilica during the traditional "Urbi et Orbi" Christmas message. Photo: AFP. Pope Francis called for "peace for Jerusalem" and "mutual trust" on the Korean peninsula as he highlighted the suffering of children in conflicts across the world in his Christmas address on Monday. In the traditional "Urbi et Orbi" address in Saint Peter's Square, the pontiff spoke of "growing tensions between Israelis and Palestinians", hoping that the "will to resume dialogue may prevail between the parties and that anegotiated solution can finally be reached, one that would allow the peaceful coexistence of two states". "Let us pray that con...

Cardinal Oscar Oscar Maradiaga looks on during a visit to the Regina Pacis Centre in Amman, Jordan on May 18th 2014. Photo: Khalil Mazraawi/AFP Honduran Cardinal Oscar Maradiaga, a key advisor to Pope Francis, on Friday rejected as "calumny" an Italian media report that he had for years received 35,000 euros ($41,600) a month from a Catholic university in his home country. L'Espresso on Thursday said the cardinal was paid more than 500,000 euros in 2015 alone by the Catholic University of Tegucigalpa, citing an inteal report from the academic institution. Hitting back at the claims, Maradiaga said the archdiocese and not himself personally received monthly payments that ...

Callista Gingrich meets Pope Francis on December 22nd 2017. Photo: AFP/Osservator Romano Callista Gingrich, wife of the former House speaker Newt Gingrich, on Friday began her duties as the new US ambassador to the Vatican. Wearing a traditional black mantilla, she presented her credentials to Pope Francis at the Vatican before officially taking on her role. The appointment carries some controversy: she is the former speaker's third wife, and had an affair with him when she was a young congressional aide named Callista Bisek and he was still married to his second wife. In 1999 Gingrich divorced his second wife and the pair married the following year. She is credit...

Pope Francis. Photo: Vincenzo Pinto/AFP Pope Francis will meet Jordan's King Abdullah II at the Vatican next week, the Holy See aounced on Friday, as Palestinians continue to clash with Israeli forces over US President Donald Trump's decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Demonstrations and violence broke out across the Palestinian territories for the second Friday in a row after the end of weekly Muslim prayers. Two Palestinians were shot and killed by Israeli forces in clashes along the Gaza-Israel border, the Palestinian health ministry said. The pope and King Abdullah, the custodian of the Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem's Old City, are l...