Pope Leo XIV is to hike the salaries of Vatican staff and officials, sources said Thursday. They said he meant to follow up on the change that began at the very beginning of his pontificate when he reinstated the Conclave bonus of 500 euros for all employees that had been abolished by his predecessor,

Even before being chosen yet, Pope Leo was already receiving requests from all corners of the globe.Following Pope Francis' passing at 88, officials are now turning their attention to Pope Leo, including a British UFO researcher and filmmaker who is hoping the new Pontiff will break years of silence and finally disclose the Vatican's secret knowledge about UFO activity.

Pope Leo XIV has appointed a new president for the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy for Life, a bioethics think tank that Catholic conservatives criticized under Pope Francis for departing from official church teaching on issues such as contraception and euthanasia.

When Pope Francis died, questions about his successor were all over the news. Every Catholic waited with bated breath on who the new head of the Catholic Church will be. The names of Asians and Africans were on the shortlist.

According to Cardinal Baldassare Reina, the vicar general of Rome, there are 8,020 priests and deacons currently in the diocese, of which 809 are permanent Rome diocesan priests.

According to the Rev. John Wauck, professor of church communication at the Pontifical Holy Cross University in Rome, Leo’s clothing choices are a “return to form,” and his attire similar to that worn by Pope Benedict XVI, Pope John Paul II and other popes going back to the middle ages.

Pope Leo’s changes to the papal wardrobe considered a ‘return to form’ - Pope Leo XIV has made waves with some of his fashion choices, returning to much of the traditional pomp of popes past

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Leo XIV made his first appointment of a Chinese bishop under the Vatican’s 2018 agreement with Beijing, signaling he is continuing one of Pope Francis’ most controversial foreign policy decisions.