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Shunning the formalities of his office and focusing on poverty, Pope Francis is drawing a sharp contrast between his 2-month-old papacy and those of his predecessors.
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In his first major statement on the global financial crisis, the pontiff calls on world leaders not to forget the poor.
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A newly cleaned painting in the Vatican, which dates to 1494, may be the first European depiction of Native Americans. The painting had been largely ignored for more than 500 years.
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Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI moves into his newly renovated residence inside the Vatican, where he will be a 10-minute walk from the reigning Pope Francis.
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The largest group for U.S. nuns had been criticized last year for "radical feminist" ideals and ordered to undergo a five-year Vatican-supervised overhaul.
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A group of American nuns and Catholic women has traveled to Rome for a pilgrimage to the sites where there are traces on frescoes, mosaics and sarcophagi that show how women played an important role in the church in the early centuries of Christianity. Groups say women once held "co-equal roles with men."
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Pope Francis recites the story of Jesus' last hours; Anglican bishops shine the shoes of passers-by and an ancient practice in the Philippines recreates the crucifixion.
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The act was a break from tradition, because all popes in recent memory have washed the feet of fellow priests. Francis traveled to a youth prison where he washed the feet of inmates and women, two things a pope had never done.
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The former Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio has both opposed liberation theology as well as criticized capitalism. And while Pope Francis' positions are in line with his predecessors on economic matter, his Latin American background may lead to an emphasis on those issues.
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The pope called a Buenos Aires newspaper kiosk to cancel his subscription. The shocked owner thought it was a joke until his holiest customer said, "Seriously. I'm calling you from Rome."