The death of Pope Francis sets into motion a series of rituals, some of which go back more than 2,000 years, including how to choose the new pope. Here's what happens next.

In antiquity and now, inconsistency and illogicality lie at the heart of the human effort to imagine what happens when we’re ...

By the Viking Age, cats with a new genetic haplogroup, IV-D, show up in York, Orkney, and even Galway, Ireland. The Norse ...

The word itself predates Christianity, but the conclave with its secretive deliberations and ancient trappings still captures ...

The funeral for Francis, the first first Latin American pontiff, is set for 10 a.m. Saturday in St. Peter's Square in The ...

Here are some of the key words and phrases that will be used throughout the interregnum, especially the conclave to elect the ...

Pope Francis died Monday at the age of 88. As tributes pour in from around the world, the Vatican faces a transition.

Francis has revolutionized the College of Cardinals by passing over large archdioceses like Los Angeles, Venice and Milan in ...

Against the ancient backdrop of Rome’s Colosseum, thousands gathered Friday evening for the solemn Via Crucis procession, ...

The earliest known Jesus mosaic inscription declaring Jesus as God, the Megiddo mosaic, was found under a prison in Israel.

Some 100 major temples towered over the landscape of Roman Egypt ... photographed scenes that reveal how ancient Egyptians depicted and worshipped their gods and how they conceived of the universe ...

Archaeologists working in an ancient Mayan city have unearthed a mysterious ... other representations of a deity known as the “Storm God,” more common in Teotihuacan than Mayan art.