VATICAN CITY - The Vatican will offer homeless people in Rome not only showers but also haircuts and shaves when new facilities open next month, the head of Pope Francis’ charity office said.

The news cycle is like a popularity contest — and Pope Francis is winning.

VATICAN CITY - The Vatican rejected reports that it could be the next target of Islamist terrorists after last week’s deadly attacks in France.

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis' Christmas greeting to the Vatican bureaucracy this year was an extended warning against a host of spiritual ills to which he said Vatican officials are prone, including "spiritual Alzheimer's," "existential schizophrenia," publicity-seeking, the "terrorism of gossip" and even a poor sense of humor.

VATICAN CITY - The first Sunday of Advent, Nov. 30, marking the start of the new liturgical year, will also inaugurate the Year for Consecrated Life.

VATICAN CITY - Prominent U.S. evangelicals Russell Moore and Rick Warren blasted the sexual revolution at a Vatican conference Nov. 18 and said it is destroying the institution of marriage.

VATICAN CITY - The Vatican has lifted its ban on the ordination of married men to the priesthood in Eastern Catholic churches outside their traditional territories, including in the United States, Canada and Australia.

The nation’s Catholic bishops have chosen a mixed slate of delegates for next year’s high-level Vatican summit on the family, including outspoken culture warriors who are sometimes viewed as out of step with Pope Francis’ priorities.

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis has established a special body within the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to speed up the process of hearing and ruling on appeals filed by priests laicized or otherwise disciplined in sexual abuse or other serious cases.

VATICAN CITY - A month after closing a Synod of Bishops on the family stirred by controversy over divorce, same-sex unions and other non-marital relationships, Pope Francis will open an interreligious conference dedicated to traditional marriage.

VATICAN CITY - They say you can feast like a king, and now you can eat like a pope after a young chef from the Vatican’s Swiss Guards published a cookbook featuring the favourite recipes of Pope Francis and his predecessors. 

UNITED NATIONS - Peace in the Middle East "can only be sought through negotiated settlements and not through unilateral choices imposed with the use of force," said Archbishop Berardito Auza, the Vatican's UN nuncio.

VATICAN CITY - Even before the start of the Oct. 5-19 Synod of Bishops on the family, observers were likening it to the Second Vatican Council of 1962-65.

VATICAN CITY - Despite its many positive advancements, globalization also has brought about greater indifference, exploitation and suffering, said the leaders of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue.

VATICAN CITY - Beatifying Blessed Paul VI at the concluding Mass of the Synod of Bishops on the family, Pope Francis praised the late pope as the "great helmsman" of the Second Vatican Council and founder of the synod, as well as a "humble and prophetic witness of love for Christ and his church."