The Roman Catholic cardinals from around the world gathering May 7 in Vatican City to elect a pope must untangle a complex web of issues as they consider candidates to lead the church's 1.4 billion followers across all seven continents. The most globally ...

Among the regular pilgrims, tourists and assorted onlookers were groups of nuns. There are around 600,000 Catholic nuns around the world, and they dedicate their lives to a variety of religious services, like charitable work, living in seclusion in monasteries and focusing on prayer.

Catholic cardinals will sequester themselves Wednesday behind the Vatican’s medieval walls for the start of a conclave to elect the 267th pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church.

The cardinals who are electing the next pope sometimes look as ideologically polarized as many secular voters around the globe. Many conservative Roman Catholic Church leaders disagreed with Pope Francis, who was often a darling of liberals around the world.