Hong Kong Cardinal Stephen Chow Sau-yan will join the conclave in which Pope Francis’ successor will be elected, the city’s Catholic diocese has said, but declined to disclose further details. The secret meeting, where all cardinals under 80 gather at the Sistine Chapel to vote for the new pontiff, normally commences 15 to 20 days…
Seven popes have been buried at St Mary Major, which is commonly known by its Italian name Santa Maria Maggiore, but none have ended their days there since Clement IX in 1669. “The place is already prepared,” Francis told an interviewer in 2023, explaining that he had a “very deep bond” with the Virgin Mary…
As entrances go, this one was both unexpected and welcome. That much was clear from the thunderous applause and cheers on Sunday as Pope Francis made his first public appearance since leaving a Rome hospital two weeks ago. Francis arrived, unannounced, on the dais in St. Peter’s Square near the end of a Mass that…
A Human Ranking System Intelligence testing would not arise until the 20th century, and the abbreviation “IQ” in 1922, but an early metric of intelligence was established by Francis Galton in his 1869 book, “Hereditary Genius.” Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin, was a leading proponent of social Darwinism, a pseudoscientific effort to organize human…
Pope Francis health has continued to improve in the week since he left the hospital after a weekslong stay, the Vatican said Tuesday. During Francis’ 38-day stay at Policlinico A. Gemelli in Rome, he was treated for pneumonia and other infections. He experienced two episodes — a breathing crisis and a bronchial spasm that caused…
The pope’s doctors did not think he was going to make it. “It’s terrible,” Pope Francis gasped during a breathing crisis last month. The pope, his hand bruised with needle pricks and his oxygen saturation dipping to a dangerously low 78 during his long hospitalization, acknowledged in a failing voice that he might die. He…
Pope Francis’s condition has improved enough that he will be discharged from a hospital in Rome on Sunday and sent to recover in the Vatican for at least two months, his doctors said on Saturday evening. They added that the case of pneumonia in both lungs was so severe that it had twice put his…
On Tuesday night, outside the Rome hospital where Pope Francis is being treated for a complex lung infection, the 8th King of Rome, a self-described “trash influencer” embarked on a secret mission. He wore a wig, hid his pink-and-blue-dyed beard behind a surgical mask and then ventured inside the hospital to show his followers what…
Flying balloons in the Vatican colors of yellow and white, dozens of children gathered on Sunday in the square of the Policlinico A. Gemelli, where Pope Francis has been hospitalized for more than four weeks, and chanted “Papa Francesco” and cheered, “Viva la Pace” — hurray for peace. Many held up signs, hoping that the…
Pope Francis has improved enough to no longer be considered in imminent danger from pneumonia and other infections, the Vatican said on Monday, but added that he would require more days of treatment in the Rome hospital where he has been for nearly a month. For weeks, doctors had said that Francis, who is 88…