A new AP-NORC poll finds that just over a month after Pope Leo XIV became the first U.S.-born pontiff, American Catholics are feeling excited about their new religious leader.

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.

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,

Pope Leo XIV has made his first appointment of a Chinese bishop. The nomination signals Leo is continuing the Vatican’s 2018 agreement with Beijing, which was one of Pope Francis' most controversial foreign policy decisions.

The Vatican wanted a complete makeover of the vatican.va website. The catch was it had to be ready to launch with the election of the new pope. Graphic designer Juan Carlos Ytō talks about how he took on the challenge.

The 2018 accord sought to resolve the issue of who has authority to appoint bishops.

One of the greatest challenges facing Pope Leo XIV is financial. He has inherited the Holy See’s chronic, 50 million to 60 million euro ($57-68 million) structural deficit, a 1 billion euro ($1.14 billion) pension fund shortfall and declining donations.

A British UFO researcher and filmmaker is hopeful that Pope Leo will be the one to finally reveal the Vatican's hidden knowledge on UFO phenomena.