Josephine McKenna

Addressing journalists on his return from his intense five-day visit to South Korea late Monday (Aug. 18), Pope Francis bantered with reporters and lightheartedly said he may only have “two or three” years left to live.

As he dispatches a top aide to war-torn Iraq this week, Pope Francis made his most impassioned plea yet for the world to halt the “slaughter” of Christians and other religious minorities by Islamic extremists.

Pope Francis met Meriam Ibrahim, the Christian woman spared a death sentence for apostasy in Sudan, at the Vatican on Thursday (July 24) after she was flown to Rome by the Italian government following a vigorous international campaign to free her.

It began with the murder of an innocent 3-year-old boy who burned to death in his grandfather’s car in a Mafia ambush in January.

As Israel continued its ground offensive into the Gaza Strip, Pope Francis urged Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to end the spiraling conflict.

Pope Francis on Monday (July 7) held his first meeting with victims of clergy sex abuse, begging for forgiveness and promising to hold “accountable” the bishops who were complicit in covering up for predatory priests.

Pope Francis on Friday (June 20) strongly condemned the legalization of recreational drugs, saying all drug use was “evil” and deserved no type of compromise.