The ten new Ambassadors come from Switzerland, Malta, The Bahamas, Cabo Verde, Iceland, The Gambia, Qatar, Estonia, Turkmenistan, and Grenada. All of them are non-resident Ambassadors because their countries do not have an established Embassy to the Holy See in Rome.  

They presented their letters of credence, or diplomatic credentials, to the Pope during an audience in the Clementine Hall in the Vatican on Thursday…

People gather outside the Campinas Cathedral after the shooting in Sao Paulo state, Brazil.

A gunman has shot and killed four people during Mass at a cathedral in southern Brazil before shooting himself at the altar.

He also shot and injured four others, all elderly worshippers, using a revolver and a .38 pistol in the attack at the Metropolitan Cathedral in Campinas, an industrial city 60 miles north of São Paulo…

On Human Rights Day, Pope Francis makes an appeal to “place human rights at the heart of all policies, including development cooperation policies, even when this means going against the tide.”

Equal human dignity in every person

These words came in a message to the International Conference: entitled “Human Rights in the Contemporary World: Achievements, Omissions, Negations” promoted by the Dicastery for Integral Human Development and the Pontifical Gregorian University…

This year’s Sand Nativity scene and the Christmas tree of Rome’s St. Peter’s Square was inaugurated Friday evening during an impressive ceremony that included Christmas carols, folk dances and band music.  

Hundreds of people, including Church dignitaries applauded as curtains were pulled down revealing the 16-meter wide depiction of the birth of Jesus made entirely of sand and dubbed the “Sand Nativity.”

The bas-relief sand sculpture of the Nativity scene is a gift of the Italian seaside resort town of Jesolo, north of Venice, and the Patriarchate of Venice.   Over 700 tons of sand from the beach of Jesolo was compacted to create the 16-meter wide and 5-meter tall Nativity sculpture covering 25 square meters…