The unvirginal hands of a gay man decorated the walls and ceilings the most famous church in the world: the Sistine Chapel.

But behind the ethereal sound of the castrato singers lay an unspeakable truth. To preserve the high, angelic tone of boyhood, thousands of young boys were castrated.

The hymn implores the saints to help the cardinals find a new leader of the 1.4 billion-strong Catholic Church. Cardinals are preparing to enter the Sistine Chapel. Here’s what will happen ...

Black smoke has poured out of the Sistine Chapel chimney, indicating no pope was elected on the first ballot of the conclave to choose a new leader of the Catholic Church The smoke billowed out at ...

Vatican firefighters atop the tiled roof of the Sistine Chapel secure the chimney ... he called “a key stage in the life of the Catholic Church.” The stove has been tested discreetly and ...

Pope Leo XIV was installed as the head of the Catholic Church after being elected in the papal Conclave on May 8.

Suddenly I heard the most beautiful noise I have ever heard in my life: the sound of tens of thousands of people cheering as ...

From the outside, it looks like any other New England church building: a boxy, white structure with a single steeple surrounded by an old stone wall, set against rolling hills and pine forest.

The restoration of the Lady Chapel in Saint-Sulpice (Paris) means that visitors can rediscover interior decoration dating from the 18th century. Its dome is the work of an artist at the peak of his ...