Sylvia Poggioli

The media mogul turned prime minister left a mark on popular culture, while his coarseness and constant legal woes trashed political norms and tainted Italy's image in the world.

NPR's Juana Summers speaks with former Italy correspondent Sylvia Poggioli about her time reporting across Europe throughout her 41 years with the network.

The pope will leave the hospital on Saturday, three days after he was hospitalized for respiratory problems. He was diagnosed with bronchitis. Francis will be present for Palm Sunday ceremonies.

Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni's second statement said that hospital tests showed Francis is suffering from a respiratory infection, but they ruled out COVID.

The leader of the world's 1.3 billion Catholics has steered his church leftward after more than two decades of conservative leadership. Opposition within the Vatican is fierce.

Pope Francis marks 10 years of his papacy on March 13. The 86-year-old pontiff has pushed the Catholic Church to the left, cheering many Catholics but also angering traditionalists.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is known for her far-right domestic policies, but she is supporting Ukraine. However, some of her coalition partners do not.

Nearly 60 bodies have been recovered from a migrant shipwreck in the Mediterranean. Many more are feared dead. Eighty migrants survived when their rickety vessel sank off the Italian coast.

Unlike Germany, which after World War II underwent a rigorous de-Nazification effort, pride, rather than shame, is the emotion many Italians feel for the symbols of the country's fascist past.

Pope Francis has said that the Catholic church must work to put an end to what he calls "unjust" laws that criminalize homosexuality, which are common in Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia.

He stressed that lack of charity with one another is also a sin and added that the Catholic Church should work to put an end to laws in some countries that criminalize homosexuality.

Former Pope Benedict XVI was buried at the Vatican Thursday after his funeral, bringing an end to an unprecedented decade in which a reigning pope lived side by side with his predecessor.

For the first time, one pope is presiding over the funeral of his predecessor. Pope Francis will preside over the funeral mass for Pope Benedict, who died on New Year's Eve at the age of 95.

The body of the former Pope Benedict XVI, who died at the age of 95 on Saturday - lay in state on Monday for the first of three days before his funeral on Thursday.

Ahead of a funeral on Thursday, mourners are paying respects to the late Pope Benedict, whose remains are on public display at the Vatican.

Benedict XVI, the first pope in seven centuries to resign, has died at the age of 95.

Pope-emeritus Benedict XVI has died. He was 95. Born Joseph Ratzinger in Bavaria, he oversaw a church in crisis and then became the first pontiff to step down since the 15th century.

He is remembered as a staunch conservative who opposed modernizing reforms and as the first pope to step down since the 15th century.

In a town in Tuscany, some cooks are moving away from the stove to cook meals in boxes with thick wool lining. These portable ovens use the wool's convection properties as a means of slow cooking.

Italy's prime minister Giorgia Meloni is suing writer Roberto Saviano for defamation. Saviano has lived under police protection since 2006, after death threats for his book on the mafia in Naples.