Pope Leo said on Tuesday that he was deeply saddened by last weekend’s suicide attack on a Greek orthodox church in Syria. A little-known Sunni Muslim extremist group has claimed responsibility for the attack on Sunday, which killed 25 and wounded more than 60 others. The authorities had initially blamed the Islamic State group for the shooting and suicide bombing …

The Vatican yesterday announced that it will cut the phone signal within the tiny city state during the conclave to elect a new pope, but stated that this would not affect St Peter’s Square. The office of the presidency of the Governorate of the Vatican City State said that ‘all the transmission systems of the telecommunications signal for mobile telephones …

As lovers of peace across the world mourn the glorious transition of Pope Francis, and await the emergence of his successor, the Guild of Interfaith Media Practitioners (GIMP) Nigeria has acknowledged the late Pontiff as a champion of interfaith tolerance and global peace. In a press statement by the Secretary of Trustees/Governing Board of the Guild, Mr. Samuel Egburonu, Pope …

It’s nothing to laugh off, however tempting. If the movies imitate life, we may not be as far away from an African pope. It happened in The Conclave, a film by Peter Straughan released in 2024, based on the novel by Robert Harris. Through the intrigues, rivalries and scandals of the plot, Adeyemi, a Nigerian cardinal at the Conclave, almost …

Pope Francis has called for debt forgiveness for impoverished countries, urging wealthier nations to enable indebted nations to recover and develop. The appeal was made in his 2025 World Day of Peace message, marked annually on 1 January to promote global peace. According to the News Agency of Nigeria, the message, delivered by the Catholic Archbishop of Lagos, Most Rev. …

Pope Francis escaped two assassination attempts on his life during his historic trip to Iraq in March 2021. This revelation was part of excerpts from his forthcoming autobiography published Tuesday by Italian media. The pontiff’s Vatican security detail received an urgent warning from the British secret services, Francis wrote. “A woman packed with explosives, a young suicide bomber, was heading …

Pope Francis returned to Rome on Friday after a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific, defying health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. The papal plane carrying the 87-year-old pontiff touched down in Rome shortly before 7:00 pm local time (17:00 GMT) — bringing to a successful close Francis’s longest …

Tens of thousands of Catholics will gather in Saint Peter’s Square on Sunday to hear Pope Francis give the Easter mass and the traditional blessing. Francis, 86, has returned to his papal duties after a recent stay in hospital following a bout of bronchitis. On Saturday evening, he presided over the Vigil mass in Saint Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, …