Vatican City, Apr 29, 2016 / 09:35 am (CNA/EWTN News).- U.S. Vice President Joe Biden went to the Vatican for a summit on regenerative medicine, where he offered praise to Pope Francis and advocated for a global push to cure cancer.

Biden opened his speech by recalling how while visiting the U.S. last September, Pope Francis had comforted him for the loss of his eldest son Beau, who passed away last summer at the age of 46 from brain cancer.

Vatican City, Apr 28, 2016 / 10:23 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In his homily Thursday Pope Francis stressed the need to be open to the novelty of the Holy Spirit, by discerning new movements and directions without being immediately closed off from them.

Vatican City, Apr 27, 2016 / 11:41 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis on Tuesday gave the green light for the beatification of 38 Albanian martyrs, all of whom were killed by the country’s atheistic, communist regime between 1945 and 1974.

In an April 26 meeting with Cardinal Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, Pope Francis officially acknowledged the martyrdom of Archbishop Nikollë Vinçenc Prennushi of Durrës and his 37 companions.

Vatican City, Apr 26, 2016 / 04:04 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis issued strong words to the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, calling clericalism “one of the greatest distortions” facing the local Church.

“(W)e’d do well to recall that the Church is not an elite priests, of consecrated people, of bishops but all of us make up the faithful and Holy People of God,” he said in an April 26 letter, recalling that everyone starts out their life as laity, Vatican Radio reported.