Pope Francis called on the world's Catholic cardinals, many of whom live in Rome and lead Vatican offices, to pursue a "zero deficit" agenda to improve the Vatican's use of its economic assets.

Pope Francis received a rapturous welcome from the tiny Southeast Asian nation of East Timor, one of the world’s most Catholic countries, where almost half the population turned out for an open-air mass on Tuesday.

Pope Francis has written to the College of Cardinals of the Catholic Church calling on them to step up efforts to cut costs as part of the reform of the Roman Curia launched a decade ago. "The past years have shown that the requests for reform,