Even as Pope Leo XIV's profile as a humble champion of the disenfranchised takes shape, a looming question is how he will approach the Catholic Church's sexual abuse crisis while leading a global institution that has maintained secrecy and silence around its handling of claims against clergy.

The Catholic Church has a new pope, and he’s the first American to hold the role. White smoke appeared around 10 a.m. MDT on Thursday, signaling that the 133 cardinals sequestered in the Sistine Chapel had chosen Pope Francis’ successor.

Omaha native Blase Cupich is back in the States after attending the conclave in Rome last week. He's one of the 251 cardinals in the world. Sign up for our Newsletters Cupich spent six years working with Robert Prevost,

News that the global Catholic church would get its first-ever U.S.-born pope was welcomed by Catholics across the ideological spectrum in Pope Leo XIV’s homeland, raising the question of whether he might be able to ease some of the deep divisions

Rubio declared "there’s nothing compassionate about open borders" as he defended the Trump's administration's immigration policies

Who says Cardinals have no other field of interest than religion? It’s now common knowledge that Pope Francis has his replacement as head of the Catholic Church and head of the Vatican’s monarchical state,

In one of Chicago’s south suburbs, while other boys were playing cops and robbers, the future Pope Leo XIV would pretend to hold Mass in the basement of his family’s small brick home, reading from scripture and distributing disk-shaped candy wafers to his two older brothers.

It was the most electric thing I have ever experienced inside the walls of a Catholic church,” one protester recalls.