It has been dubbed "the day of the four Popes", an unprecedented occasion in the 2000-year history of the Catholic Church.

A fraudster who siphoned off more than $1.2 million from a Wellington Catholic society has been ordered to pay back half of what she stole.

He's dropped an F-bomb, sold his Harley and appeared on Rolling Stone magazine. We look at ten of Pope Francis' notable moments in his first 12 months.

A selection of images celebrating the one-year anniversary of Pope Francis' election as Bishop of Rome.

Pope Francis has attacked the hype surrounding his papacy, claiming yesterday he is a "normal person" and calling comparisons between himself and Superman "offensive".

Pope Francis has caused a stir at his weekly Vatican address by seemingly dropping the F-Bomb with the ease of a drunken docker in a public house.

Catholics are divided on issues such as divorce and birth control amid widespread resentment at Church teachings, two surveys have found.

Bare-breasted feminists hurled knickers at the archbishop of Madrid as he arrived at church in protest at his support for a tightening of Spain's abortion law.

An Italian man charged with murdering his Irish landlord after an alleged row over a game of chess told police he had cut open his victim and tried to eat his heart.

An Irish man has been knifed to death in a frenzied attack over a late night chess game, detectives believe.

Pope Francis has broken protocol to invite an old friend up for a ride on his popemobile in St Peter's Square.

Pope Francis has been forced to defend his economic and social ideologies after prominent conservatives accused him of coming forward with “pure Marxism”.

Time magazine has named Pope Francis its person of the year, saying that in nine months in office the head of the Catholic Church had become a new voice of conscience.

Shouting "murderer" and "executioner," hundreds of people jeered as the coffin of Nazi war criminal Erich Priebke arrived Tuesday for a funeral Mass celebrated by a splinter Catholic group opposed to the Vatican's outreach to Jews.

Pope Francis has declared himself a "sinner" and said the Catholic Church will "fall like a house of cards" unless it is able to focus more on the "essentials" of preaching the Gospel and less on politics and bureaucracy.

A photo of the Pope posing with young fans at the Vatican has gone viral on social media, with gleeful reports that it was the first ever "Papal selfie".

Frenzied crowds of Roman Catholics mobbed the car carrying Pope Francis when he returned to his home continent for the first time as pontiff, embarking on a seven-day visit meant to fan the fervour of the faithful around the globe.

The Vatican has asked Brazil for an additional €30 million ($49.5 million) to help cover an expected shortfall in funding for the visit of the Pope to Rio de Janeiro this month.

A Vatican official already under investigation in a purported money-laundering plot involving the Vatican bank was arrested yesterday in a separate operation.

Pope Francis has admitted for the first time that there is a "gay lobby" within the Curia, the powerful governing body of the Roman Catholic Church.

Australia's most senior Catholic, Cardinal George Pell, has admitted the fear of scandal led to cover-up in the church over child abuse.