In my short lifetime, I have already seen three popes preside as the head of our Church. 

VATICAN – Retired Pope Benedict XVI expressed his displeasure with the way a German cardinal publicly criticized his stepping down as pontiff, and he defended taking the title "pope emeritus."

In the current state of distress highlighted by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò’s claim that Pope Francis has long known about accusations of sexual abuse against former American cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the story of the previous pope’s butler, Paolo Gabriele, should be recalled.

Religion News Service – It is hard to know what to think of the bombshell dropped by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, who released a scalding letter on Sunday (Aug. 26) calling on Pope Francis to resign. Viganò, the former Vatican ambassador to the United States, claims in the letter that Pope Francis knew that recently resigned Cardinal Theodore McCarrick abused seminarians when he was a bishop in New Jersey but nonetheless didn’t punish the cardinal.

By categorically rejecting the death penalty, the Church has finally removed an unsettling contradiction to its teaching that all human life is sacred from conception to natural death. 

VATICAN – The ability of Church officials to be their own worst enemies has been on display the past two weeks as the Vatican has been rocked by the scandalous handling of a letter from Pope Benedict about a series of books on the theology of Pope Francis.

VATICAN – After a very public controversy involving the use of a letter by retired Pope Benedict XVI, Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Msgr. Dario Vigano as prefect of the Vatican Secretariat for Communication.

VATICAN – A Vatican office has acknowledged blurring portions of a letter written by Benedict XVI regarding Pope Francis' philosophical and theological formation, the Associated Press reported Wednesday.

VATICAN – Promoting and defending Catholic teaching is itself a pastoral practice, said Archbishop Luis Ladaria Ferrer, S.J., the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

VATICAN – Cardinal Karl Lehmann, longtime president of the German bishops' conference and a respected theologian who participated in the Second Vatican Council, died March 11.

On March 13, 2013 the new pope, a surprise selection, received thunderous cheers when introduced to thousands of pilgrims packed into a drizzly St. Peter’s Square. It was a precedent-setting night. Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio became the first South American pope, the first Jesuit pope and the first pope named Francis.

VATICAN – The Vatican denied that retired Pope Benedict XVI has a degenerative neurological disease or paralyzing condition after his brother, 94-year-old Msgr. Georg Ratzinger, told a magazine that Pope Benedict had a debilitating disease.

VATICAN – "I am on a pilgrimage toward Home," retired Pope Benedict XVI wrote, capitalizing the Italian word "casa" or "home."

ROME – The global growth of Islam and in particular the rise of Islamic extremism have forced recent popes to set out, with increasing urgency, a strategy for engaging the religion.

VATICAN CITY – A bit of Bavaria, including German beer and pretzels, came to the Vatican to help celebrate retired Pope Benedict XVI's 90th birthday.