The Guardian today, picking up on a paper in Nature, reports that scientists have calculated that there are more than “3tn” trees on Earth. The “3tn” means three trillion. What does “trillion” mean in British English? Did they give up on that “billion”-means-“trillion”/“trillion”-means-“quintillion” nonsense yet? …
On Sunday, Pope Francis canonized two 19th-century nuns from what was then Palestine, the Associated Press reports. The canonization was attended by some 2,000 pilgrims from the region, as well as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
A gust of wind blows Pope Francis's mantle as he arrives in St. Peter's Square for the weekly general audience on Wednesday. Image via Gregorio Borgia/AP.
President Obama meets with Pope Francis for the first time on Thursday. They met at the Vatican for about an hour, and Obama gave the pope a box of assorted seeds from the White House garden. Image via Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP.
When an Italian porn star brought his parrot named Amore to see Pope Francis on Wednesday, the pope treated the green bird with the dignity and respect owed to any parrot. The bird received a papal blessing.
A vial of holy blood belonging to the dead pope John Paul II was stolen from a tiny church in the mountains east of Rome, and an Italian anti-occult organization says the blood was likely taken for Satanic rituals.
Pope Francis, addressing diplomats in the Vatican's annual "State of the World" remarks, denounced abortion as "horrific," "frightful," and "a symptom of throwaway culture." BBC News speculates that conservative clergy in Rome had been clamoring behind the scenes for such a condemnation since Pope Francis' election in…
Pope Francis is a different kind of pontiff, a friendly and humble Jesuit who loves to hang out on the corner with his people. But what's that bowl-pipe thing he carries around and frequently takes a hit off? It's a mate cup with a silver straw. And it's how you drink the caffeine-loaded "national infusion" of…
Thousands of commemorative medals issued by the Vatican to celebrate Pope Francis’s first year of papacy had to be withdrawn this week over a typo. It seems the Vatican misspelled "Jesus."
In a 12,000 word interview with Italian Jesuit journal La Civilta Cattolica, Pope Francis furthered his reputation as World's Coolest Pope by correctly noting that the Roman Catholic Church has become “obsessed” with preaching against abortion, gay marriage, and contraception.
In the middle of the European Renaissance, these fantastic skeleton gods were being constructed in the bowels of Europe's Catholic churches. Los Angeles art historian and photographer Paul Koudounaris found these secret saints in catacombs and storage bins across the old Holy Roman Empire.
It was fun having a Nazi supervillain as pope, but it wasn't very good for the Catholic Church brand. The new pope, Francis, is working hard at giving the papacy a nicer public image. If you're bummed out about a relationship, for example, he'll call you and talk you through it.
Hold on to your rosaries, this is going to get ugly. Don Patrizio Poggi, a parish priest in Rome who served five years for sexually abusing teenage boys, has filed a complaint with Italian police alleging the existence of a Vatican "rent boy" ring.
In a major surprise, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, an Argentinian cardinal predicted by almost no one, has been named Pope by the Papal Conclave. He will be the first-ever pope from the Western Hemipshere, and will take the name Francis I. Bergoglio was announced to a packed and cheering St. Peter's Square minutes ago,…
The latest in a string of gay sex scandals involving the Vatican hits a little closer to home.
Roman Catholic cardinals gathered today to start the process of electing a new Pope, kicking off the morning with a solemn Mass and prayers that they would select the right leader. Because these guys are great at symbolism, they will vote in the Sistine Chapel below the painting of the Last Judgment.
A man impersonating a Bishop managed to sneak past Vatican security and get photographed with a cardinal—with only confidence, a winning smile, an entourage of fake clerics, and a too-short cassock. Good thing people still know what that is, because this paltry robe was his giveaway.
Before his farewell address this morning, representatives of the Pope in the Vatican strongly condemned yesterday's media coverage of a report by a group of Cardinals that outlined a network of gay officials inside the Vatican and their blackmail by a gay prostitution ring. The Vatican did not deny or dispute the…
A new report outlining a network of gay Vatican officials might have been behind the Pope's resignation earlier this month, a claim the Vatican neither confirms or denies.
