Pope Francis

Prime Minister Ludovic Orban welcomed on Saturday, at the 90 Otopeni Air Base, the Romanian doctors and nurses who returned from the mission to Italy, whom he thanked and conveyed his respect and appreciation for the solidarity proven with the medical staff and patients from Italy, in the fight against COVID-19.

The medical equipment donated by the Vatican City State to the local authorities of Suceava, by the benevolence of Pope Francis, will be brought to Romania on Saturday aboard a C-27J Spartan aircraft of the Romanian Air Force, a National Defence Ministry (MApN) release sent to AGERPRES informs.

Only by entering the light of Resurrection we, too, will be able to bring hope and joy in our families and the world we live in, Cardinal Lucian, Major Archbishop of the Romanian Church United with Rome, Greek-Catholic, says in the Pastoral letter sent to the clergy and believers on the feast of the Holy Easter. The Greek-Catholic believers are celebrating Easter on Sunday, 19 April.

Australia's highest court on April 7 acquitted former Vatican treasurer George Pell of sexually assaulting two teenaged choirboys in the 1990s, freeing the 78-year-old cardinal after 404 days in jail.

Coronavirus cases across the globe jumped on March 26 as Japan planned to set up a special virus task force and New Zealand went under lockdown.

The U.S. Senate unanimously backed a $2 trillion bill aimed at helping unemployed workers and industries hurt by the epidemic.  

Messages of support and offers of help have poured into Croatia after Sunday's earthquake of at least 5.3 magnitudes, which hit the capital and injured dozens of people as well as damaging buildings.

President Klaus Iohannis has stated on Tuesday that, in the past years, the activity of the Interior Ministry (MAI) demonstrated a series of deficiencies in the context of some situations such as the Caracal case or the events that occurred on 10 August, and underscored that the Ministry has the obligation to carry out a self-assessment in order to identify measures to solve the problems.

Monsignor Kovács Gergely was consecrated and installed as the new Roman Catholic Archbishop of Alba Iulia in a ceremony celebrated on Saturday at the St. Michael Cathedral of Alba Iulia, with dozens of ecclesiastical officials - cardinals, bishops, representatives of the other Churches in Transylvania - attending.

Monsignor Aurel Perca, who was appointed by Pope Francis as the Metropolitan Archbishop of Bucharest, was invested on Saturday within a solemn Holy Mass officiated in the "St. Joseph" Cathedral in Bucharest. Through this celebration His Excellency Aurel Perca took possession of the Roman-Catholic Archdiocese of Bucharest from Monsignor Ioan Robu.

 A visibly indignant Pope Francis had to pull himself away from a woman in a crowd in St Peter's Square on Dec. 31 after she grabbed his hand and yanked him toward her.

Pope Francis was walking through the square in Vatican City and greeting pilgrims on his way to see the large Nativity scene set up in the huge, cobbled esplanade.