The cardinal currently is based in Vatican City, where he holds the title of prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of Sacraments.
Though his voice is heard throughout the world, all Francis has to truly rule is the Holy See, based in Vatican City, one of the smallest countries in the world.
However, Sat2000, a satellite TV station based in Vatican City, has countered that the Pokémon Trading Card Game and video games are "full of inventive imagination" and have no "harmful moral side effects".
It's a long way from the Vatican to Roscoe Village, but a group based in that North Side neighborhood is leading a high-profile protest among American priests that challenges the Roman Catholic Church's ban on ordination of women.
Francesco Sisci, a journalist based in Beijing and a former Italian diplomat who is an expert on Sino-Vatican relations, said that all ordained bishops not approved by the pope are automatically excommunicated, so the Vatican's additional step of announcing it — and the threat to those who took part in the ritual — was especially significant.
A common greeting is "Have you eaten yet?" "When someone comes along and presents himself as the spokesman of Thai cuisine, it's like Osama bin Laden going to the Vatican and saying he is the high authority on Catholicism," said Bob Halliday, a food writer based in Bangkok who has lived in Thailand for four decades.
The group's attack on the Vatican was confirmed by the hackers and is detailed in a report that Imperva, a computer security company based in Redwood City, Calif., plans to release ahead of a computer security conference here this week.
In 2003, the head of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, based at the Vatican, Cardinal Renato Martino, asserted that the Catholic Church supports genetic modification of food crops as an answer for world starvation and malnutrition and because "scientific progress was part of the divine plan" [ 44, 45].
In June 2013, the Vatican's own financial watchdog uncovered suspiciously large cash withdrawals and deposits in Vatican bank accounts held by the Vatican embassies in Iran, Iraq, Syria and Indonesia.
Does the pope live in Vatican City?
Who lives in Vatican City?
