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Pope Francis’s first year as pontiff – in pictures ...

To mark the first anniversary of Pope Francis accession, we take a look back at his first year as pontiff ...

In his first 12 months Pope Francis has done all that one man can do. The challenge now is to ensure his successor cannot undo all his progress In his first year in office, Pope Francis has transformed the image of the papacy. His demonstrative lack of ostentation has been an extraordinary contrast with almost all his predecessors. From the moment he signed out of his own hotel room after being elected...

One year on, everyone agrees Pope Francis is a breath of fresh air for the Catholic church, but there is less clarity over who he really is. Is he liberal or conservative – or is he something altogether more unpredictable? After a full year in office it ought to be fairly clear what kind of pope the new man in the Vatican is turning out to be. Yet if you survey the raft of commentaries on the...

s nuanced book investigates an unholy alliance between fascism and the Catholic church In 1938, Pope Pius XI addressed a group of visitors to the Vatican. There were some people, he said, who argued that the state should be all-powerful – "totalitarian". Such an idea, he went on, was absurd, not because individual liberty was too precious to be surrendered, but because "if there is a totalitarian...

s book suggests the entire fashion industry is a dangerous trick, and needs to be overturned Setting up the terms of her polemic against the fashion industry, Tansy Hoskins defines fashion in utilitarian terms as "changing styles of dress and appearance adopted by groups of people", and the industry as one in which there is "a shrinking distinction between high fashion and high street fashion"....

idealisation' as Vatican prepares to celebrate anniversary of his election He has graced the cover of Rolling Stone, been depicted as a street-art superhero and is greeted by crowds of adoring fans wherever he goes. But Pope Francis has told a newspaper he has had enough of the hero worship that has accompanied his year-long papacy, describing it as offensive and insisting he is just "a normal person"....

formidable church machine' Three priests and one ex-priest whose allegations of sexual misconduct against the archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, Cardinal Keith O'Brien, led to his resignation a year ago, have appealed directly to Pope Francis for a meeting in a last-ditch bid for justice. Describing the church as a "formidable machine" that had blocked any investigation, one told the Observer...

s a full-bodied statistic that needs a really good swill. Vatican City consumes more wine per head than any other country. According to the California-based Wine Institute , the tiny state's populace averaged 74 litres of wine each in 2012. Assuming they drink the standard size, that's around 98 bottles. There is no passing this off as a celebratory blip to wet the head of the new pope. He didn't start...

Bishop of Parramatta the firm favourite after Pell called to Vatican to oversee budget ...

Archbishop of Sydney will head the secretariat for the economy in first major overhaul of the church’s bureaucracy in 25 years ...

Confessions of a recovering fat cat who saw the same poverty Francis did and knows what a pope can teach a president about income inequality Plus: Barack Obama meets Pope Francis at Vatican Video: Obama and Francis talk income inequality In the 1990s, I was part of a wave of investment bankers that invaded Argentina, evangelizing the mantra of the unregulated free market, which had made us millions....

s prized red biretta. Speaking in St Peter's basilica a day after he created 19 new cardinals, the Argentinean pontiff strictly exhorted the men to reject the habits of a royal court that have in recent years come to be associated with parts of the Roman curia, or Vatican bureaucracy. Looking up from his notes to address the massed ranks of cardinals, he told them: "A cardinal – I say this especially...

Many of the 19 men to be made cardinals by Pope Francis on Saturday share similar backgrounds and outlooks to the pontiff ...

s time for Superpope. In the same week that he became the first pontiff to be featured on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine , Pope Francis has appeared in cartoon form on a building near the Vatican, his right fist clenched ahead of him in classic Superman style. He is carrying a black briefcase bearing the word valores , Spanish for values, containing a scarf bearing the blue and red colours of...

" This is one popular pope. Only last month he was smiling from the cover of Time magazine as its 2013 "person of the year." And that was his second Time cover appearance last year. But Rolling Stone is a rock music magazine, so it is a landmark decision to feature him. (No jokes then about a Rolling Stone gathers no mass). Inside the magazine is a 7,700-word profile by contributing editor Mark Binelli,...

s Square Two white doves that were released as a peace gesture by children standing alongside Pope Francis were attacked by other birds. As tens of thousands of people watched in St Peter...

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t look it. Small and besuited amid a sea of sashes, medals and gowns, he looked for all the world like a naughty schoolboy called in to see the headmaster. And there was no confessional in sight. The agenda was earnest, as they are wont to be on occasions like this. The 35-minute conversation revolved around such pressing subjects as respect for religious communities, the situations in Syria and Central...

despair of historians' Pope John Paul II's secretary "did not have the courage" to burn all of the pontiff's notes after his death, and is now having some of them published, he has said. The book, Very Much in God's Hands: Personal Notes 1962-2003, comes out on 5 February in Poland, where the pope is still a much-loved authority. It contains religious meditations that Karol Wojtyla recorded between...