Pope Francis proclaimed seven new saints on Sunday, including the Argentine "gaucho priest" who served as an inspiration for the pontiff, and two people who were slain for their Catholic faith.

Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets of Paris on Sunday to demonstrate against gay marriage and to call for candidates in next year's presidential election to support "traditional family values."

Who needs a summer palace? Not Pope Francis, who has renounced the delights of Castel Gandolfo outside Rome and opened his private apartments to tourists, the Vatican said Friday.

For the first time in its almost 500-year history, the Roman Catholic Jesuit order on Friday elected a non-European as its leader, a post informally known as the "black pope."

A Turkish official ripped a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed out of a mural at the Council of Europe headquarters in Strasbourg, a source at the rights body said Friday.

A group of Indian cinemas said Friday they would not screen any films featuring Pakistani artists in protest at an attack by militants that killed 19 Indian soldiers in Kashmir.

A Pakistani teenager and his religious teacher have been accused of blasphemy, police told AFP Friday, after the student was allegedly caught burning pages of the Koran.

Israel suspended cooperation with UNESCO on Friday after the UN cultural organisation adopted two resolutions on annexed east Jerusalem ahead of a final vote next week.

In a letter sent to UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova, Education Minister Naftali Bennett accused the body of ignoring "thousands of years of Jewish ties to Jerusalem" and aiding "Islamist terror."

More than 24 hours after awarding Bob Dylan the Nobel prize for literature, the Swedish Academy said Friday they had still not managed to speak to the reclusive U.S. singer.

Long-banished German words and phrases linked to the country's Nazi past have been revived by far-right politicians railing against the migrant influx, sparking comparisons to the 1930s.