Marie-Theo Manaudpose is a nun and member of the new Vatican Athletics team aiming to compete in international contests like the Olympics. About 60 Holy See runners, including Swiss Guards, priests, nuns and pharmacists, are the first members of the team.
An extremely cold weather front, dubbed the "Beast from the East" by the British media, is expected to bring extremely cold air from Russia to vast areas of Europe this week. See more from Rome here.
( Alessandra Tarantino / AP; Angelo Carconi / EPA ; Vincenzo Pinto / AfP - Getty Images )
Pope Francis looks at a chocolate statue of himself that he received as a gift, at the Vatican on Feb. 5, 2014. The statue was created using 1.5 tons of cocoa.
(Photo: Alessandra Tarantino / AP)
The United Nations heavily criticized the Vatican on Wednesday for what it said was a systematic adoption of policies allowing priests to rape and sexually abuse tens of thousands of children.
(Photo: John Parra / Getty Images file)
More students in seminaries, more people in the pews, and the pitter-patter of little feet padding through the rectory.
(Photo: Tony Gentile / Reuters)
A somber-looking Pope Francis made an impassioned appeal before 100,000 people on Saturday to avert a widening of Syria's conflict, urging world leaders to pull humanity out of a "spiral of sorrow and death."
(Photo: Franco Origlia / Getty Images Contributor)
ROME – More than one month since his election, Pope Francis is winning new fans and drawing big crowds to the Vatican.
(Photo: Osservatore Romano via AFP - Getty Images)
ROME – Since he was elected leader of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis has proved many times over that he wants to break away from clerical privilege, come down from St. Peter’s throne and act as a humble servant of the faithful.
(Photo: Peter Macdiarmid / Getty Images)
VATICAN CITY - Argentinian Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires was named leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics on Wednesday after being elected pope. He will be known as Pope Francis I.
(Photo: Dylan Martinez / Reuters)
On second day of deliberations, cardinals begin another session of talking and voting as they try to decide who will be the next Bishop of Rome.
(Photo: Vincenzo Pinto / AFP / Getty Images)
VATICAN CITY — Black smoke rose above the Sistine Chapel on Tuesday, signaling that 115 Roman Catholic cardinals failed to agree on a new pope during the first day of the papal conclave.
The "princes of the church" began deliberating inside the Vatican after swearing an oath of secrecy and entering the papal conclave at about 5 p.m. local time (12 p.m. ET).
(Photo: Michael Kappeler / EPA)
As the papal conclave begins in Rome, wrapped in mystery and secrecy, there is no indication that the 115 cardinals will be deciding between just a couple of front-runners in choosing a successor to Pope Benedict XVI.
(Photo: Alessandro Bianchi / Reuters)
Cardinals must now identify the key characteristics they want to see in the next leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics.
(Photo: Ettore Ferrari / EPA)
As the Vatican waits for a new pope under a cloud of scandal, the journalist at the center of the Vatileaks case is revealing the high-stakes, cloak-and-dagger operation he undertook to protect the butler who went public with the secrets.
