Vatican

ROME -- The Vatican-ordered revision of the statutes of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious will continue, but it must be accompanied with a real dialogue, which has been missing from the process, said Brazilian Cardinal Joao Braz de Aviz, prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.

VATICAN CITY -- Although attempts were made to simplify the ceremony, Pope Francis officially inaugurated his ministfry as pope and bishop of Rome in a liturgy filled with biblical symbolism and signs of the universality of his mission.

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis began his first full day as pope with an early morning act of Marian devotion — and by paying the bill at the clergy hotel where he had stayed before entering the conclave that elected him.

The new pope left the Domus Sanctae Marthae at 8 a.m. March 14 for a five-minute drive to the Basilica of St. Mary Major, where he prayed before an icon of Mary and the child Jesus beloved by Romans, the "Salus Populi Romani" (Protectress of the Roman People).

Like other pilgrims visiting the Vatican this week, St. Louisan Lindsey Joyce has had a front-row view to a historical moment for the Church.

Last year, Joyce, 29, signed up to participate in a pilgrimage with Lino Rulli, who hosts The Catholic Guy radio show on Sirius xm satellite radio. The parishioner at St. Joseph in Cottleville, who works as an operating room nurse at Mercy Hospital St. Louis, was notified in early December that she had a slot on the pilgrimage — months before Pope Benedict XVI announced his retirement. She left for Rome March 8.