The Vatican has laws to ensure the transfer of power when a pope dies or resigns, but they don't apply if he is sick.

The death of a sitting pope initiates a profound period of mourning and transition within the Roman Catholic Church, marked ...

Many who know him said that Francis, driven by a sense of mission and a discipline born of his early training, essentially ...

Pope Francis was placed in “critical condition” on Saturday, the Vatican said, just four days after the religious leader ...

The announcement on Saturday evening indicated that Francis’ medical condition had become more complicated since an update ...

The Vatican reports that Pope Francis is in critical condition after experiencing a prolonged asthmatic respiratory crisis ...

While Pope Francis battles pneumonia in hospital, work at the Vatican, headquarters of the 1.4 billion-member Catholic Church ...

The Vatican said Francis, who has pneumonia in both lungs and had part of one lung removed as a young man, was still ...

Pope Francis has asked people to pray for him as the head of the Catholic Church continues to receive oxygen. Vatican sources ...

Even while Pope Francis is hospitalized, he still keeps in touch with a Roman Catholic parish in Gaza City, making near-nightly phone calls to the priest and congregation there.

The Vatican says Pope Francis is in critical condition after he suffered a long asthmatic respiratory crisis that required ...