“We can hardly fail to see that these days, in addition to the pandemic, an ‘infodemic’ is spreading: a distortion of reality based on fear,” Pope Francis said Friday.

The lone cardinal indicted in the Vatican’s big fraud and embezzlement trial has issued a formal protest to the court claiming the pope’s prosecutors had offended his dignity by suggesting he was having sex with a co-defendant.

In a previously scheduled speech to the Vatican office that handles sex abuse cases, Pope Francis did not refer to the findings of a long-awaited report into how the Munich archdiocese handled abuse cases.

The Vatican has included a group that advocates for women’s ordination on a website promoting the 2023 synod, indicating that Pope Francis wants to hear from all Catholics during the process.

Pope Francis took the first step to reorganize the Vatican’s doctrine office, removing the No. 2 official widely believed responsible for a controversial document barring blessings for same-sex couples.

For the first time, a layman and a nun provided the English and Spanish translations of Francis’ weekly catechism lesson rather than a cloaked monsignor, a small but revolutionary change for the Vatican.

Pope Francis is facing a sustained campaign of opposition from some Catholics. He has responded with the papal equivalent of “no more Mr. Nice Guy.”

The apology drew immediate praise Monday from New Ways Ministry as a “historic” move to repair the painful rift between the Catholic hierarchy and the gay community.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in told Pope Francis Friday that a papal visit to North Korea would help create “momentum for peace” on the peninsula, officials said.

A Vatican tribunal absolved a former altar boy of charges that he molested a younger boy in the Vatican’s youth seminary, ruling Wednesday in the first clergy sexual abuse trial to be heard by the pope’s criminal court.