Cardinal Baldassare Reina led the daily vigil Thursday in St. Peter’s Square to pray for Pope Francis. The pope continued to improve from double pneumonia, the Vatican said, though doctors said he needs more days of “clinical stability” before they revise their guarded prognosis.

The latest statement suggests that the 88-year-old is able to sit in his chair, eat normally and do what the Vatican calls "light work".

Gandhi’s Scant Garb Bars Audience with Pope.” So read the headline of a New York Times report, from December 13, 1931, that the Vatican had cancelled a meeting between Pius XI and “the Indian nationalist leader” because the Pope thought he might be criticized “if he received the visitor in his usual scanty clothing.

In this a crucifix is seen as Pope Francis leads his general audience from his library in the Apostolic Palace at the Vatican. (CNS photo/Vatican Media) For those who recognize Christ as the savior,

Pope Francis has advanced the sainthood cause of Father Emil J. Kapaun, a U.S. Army chaplain who gave his life ministering to fellow soldiers in a North Korean prison camp.

The pope looms so large in everyday Italian life that there are lots of expressions that make light of even a dark event like his death. “A pope dies, they make another,” goes one,

Faithful gathered at St. Peter's Square in the Vatican and outside Rome's Gemelli Hospital on Monday (February 24) as Pope Francis remains critically ill but alert, according to the Vatican. Could these jumping mice change how astronauts exercise?

Get a recap of recent financial, health and general interest stories through this special edition of our Hot off the Wire daily news podcast.

Sister Maximilian Marie Garretson with Bishop Reicher High School took a group last month to Rome, Italy to see and interact with The Pope, having a connection to him forever back in Central Texas.

Cardinal Farrell, Dallas' former bishop, oversees Vatican affairs as Camerlengo following Pope Francis' health crisis.

The Vatican says Pope Francis has continued making decisions and is improving, but his two-week hospital stay poses uncomfortable, unanswered questions about Vatican decision-making.