Hannah Brockhaus

Hannah Brockhaus

Hannah Brockhaus is Catholic News Agency’s senior Vatican correspondent. After growing up in Omaha, Nebraska, she earned a degree in English from Truman State University in Missouri. In 2016, she moved to Rome, Italy, where in her spare time she enjoys reading and going on adventures with her husband and son.

Articles by Hannah Brockhaus

Pope Francis speaks at the Dili Convention Center in East Timor, Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2024. Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA

Pope Francis leaves East Timor: ‘I’ll never forget your smiles’

Sep 11, 2024 / 11:15 am

Pope Francis’ event with young adults was his last stop in East Timor before flying four hours to Singapore for the fourth and final leg of his Sept. 2–13 trip.

Pope Francis delivers a video message to participants in the 53rd International Eucharistic Congress, taking place in Quito, Ecuador, Sept. 8-15, 2024. The Eucharist teaches us how to have, the pope said in his message recorded at the Vatican, "a profound brotherhood, born of union with God..." Credit: screenshot of video from Holy See Press Office

Pope Francis to 2024 International Eucharistic Congress: The Eucharist teaches us fraternity

Sep 8, 2024 / 12:05 pm

Pope Francis sent a video message for the first day of the 2024 International Eucharistic Congress, taking place in Quito, Ecuador, Sept. 8–15.

Pope Francis wears a traditional head dress as greets a young girl in Vanimo, Papua New Guinea, Sept. 8, 2024. Credit: Vatican Media

Pope Francis in Papua New Guinea: Put love before superstition, fear

Sep 8, 2024 / 09:10 am

After celebrating Mass in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, on Sept. 8, the pope traveled 620 miles by air to Vanimo, a coastal town known for its white sand beaches.

East Timor’s President José Ramos-Horta and Cardinal Virgílio do Carmo da Silva,speak to EWTN News in Depth in August 2024, ahead of the visit by Pope Francis. Credit: EWTN News

How the Catholic faith has helped East Timor forgive

Sep 6, 2024 / 07:00 am

Pope Francis’ visit to East Timor highlights the Catholic Church’s vital role in the nation’s journey of reconciliation and peace.

Father Thomas Rosica, CSB. Credit: Chris Adamczyk/Salt and Light Catholic Media Foundation via Wikimedia, CC BY SA 4.0

Father Thomas Rosica sued for sexual assault in Canada

Sep 5, 2024 / 10:50 am

Father Thomas Rosica was CEO of the Salt and Light Media Foundation for 16 years and a prominent writer, speaker, and media figure before resigning in 2019.

The Monastery of Gedono receives many guests, both Catholic and Muslim. The sisters have a guesthouse for priests, religious, and laypeople who come for a few days or a week of solitude and prayer. As many as 200 or 300 people attend Sunday Mass at the monastery. Credit: Monastery of Gedono

In Muslim Indonesia, a Catholic monastery has become part of the community

Sep 1, 2024 / 06:00 am

Sister Martha Driscoll, the founding superior of a monastery in Java, shares what life is like for Catholics in the majority-Muslim country of Indonesia.

Pope Francis addresses members of the Dicastery for Evangelization, who are meeting in an extraordinary plenary assembly Aug. 29–30, 2024, to discuss the future of the Pontifical Urban University, which educates priests and religious from the Catholic Church’s mission territories. Credit: Vatican Media

Pope Francis opposes idea to ‘dissolve’ 400-year-old missionary university in Rome

Aug 30, 2024 / 09:08 am

“There is some plan to ‘dissolve’ [the university] with the other universities: No, this will not do,” Francis said to members of the Dicastery for Evangelization.

Isabella Salandri gives visitors a preview tour of the Vatican Gardens in Vatican City on Aug. 23, 2024. Credit: Hannah Brockhaus/CNA

PHOTOS: New Vatican Gardens tour invites families to explore God’s natural ‘masterpieces’

Aug 29, 2024 / 11:18 am

Children and their families now have the chance to encounter the Vatican Gardens in a way tailored to capture the attention of some of its youngest visitors.

Pope Francis meets with the bishops of the Arabian region on Aug. 28, 2024, at the Vatican. Credit: Vatican Media

Pope Francis meets Middle East Catholic bishops amid fears of all-out war in region

Aug 28, 2024 / 12:50 pm

The Holy Father encouraged the bishops to “bear witness to faith in [the Lord], also through respectful and sincere dialogue with everyone.”

Pope Francis addresses pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square for his general audience on Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2024. Credit: Vatican Media

Pope Francis: Intentionally hurting migrants ‘is a grave sin’

Aug 28, 2024 / 11:06 am

The pope spoke at length about the poor conditions of migrants who attempt to cross a sea or desert to reach safety but sometimes lose their lives in the process.

Pope Francis addressed the International Catholic Legislators Network as it holds its 15th annual meeting in Italy from Aug. 22-25. The theme of the gathering is “The World at War: Permanent Crises and Conflicts — What Does It Mean for Us?” Credit: Vatican Media

Pope Francis: War has an ‘abyss of evil’ at its center

Aug 24, 2024 / 11:00 am

Pope Francis asked Catholic politicians and legislators to be witnesses of hope to a “war-weary world,” especially the next generation.

Pope Francis meets with Beniamino Zuncheddu at the Vatican on Aug. 23, 2024. Zuncheddu, who was wrongly imprisoned for 33 years after being falsely accused of the triple homicide of three shepherds in 1991, had his conviction overturned and was released from prison. Credit: Vatican Media

Pope Francis meets wrongly-imprisoned Italian man freed after 33 years behind bars

Aug 23, 2024 / 16:45 pm

Beniamino Zuncheddu, now in his 60s, was released from prison in January after his murder conviction was overturned.

The Vatican has accepted the decree of an archbishop approving the spiritual activities of the Catholic Shrine of Chandavila in the town of La Codosera in Badajoz, Spain, where Our Lady of Sorrows is alleged to have appeared to two young girls at the end of World War II. Credit: Mentxuwiki, Wikimedia, CC BY-SA 4.0

Vatican approves devotion to 1945 apparition of Our Lady of Sorrows in Spain 

Aug 23, 2024 / 12:15 pm

An Aug. 22 letter from the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith called Our Lady of Sorrows of Chandavila a “beautiful devotion” with “many positive aspects.”

The King Baudouin Stadium in Brussels on Sept. 4, 2020. Credit: MARTIN BUREAU/AFP via Getty Images

Pope Francis sells out Belgium stadium for Sept. 29 beatification Mass in just 90 minutes

Aug 22, 2024 / 07:00 am

After becoming available for free online, 32,000 tickets for the Sept. 29 Mass were snatched up in just 90 minutes, surprising local organizers of the pope’s trip.

Pope Francis continued a series of lessons on the Holy Spirit during his weekly meeting with the public in the Vatican's Paul VI Hall on Aug. 21, 2024. Credit: Daniel Ibanez/CNA

Pope Francis: Living the fruits of the Holy Spirit helps us spread holiness

Aug 21, 2024 / 07:00 am

During his general audience in the Vatican, Pope Francis spoke about the Holy Spirit, focusing on the fruits of being anointed with blessed oil in the sacraments.

Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, OFM, the leader of the Catholic Church in the Holy Land, discussed prospects for peace in the war in Gaza Tuesday, Aug. 20, 2024, in a conversation with Bernhard Scholz, president of the Meeting for Friendship Amongst Peoples Foundation. Credit: Photo courtesy of Meeting for Friendship Amongst People

Pope Francis and Cardinal Pizzaballa open lay Catholic meeting against backdrop of war

Aug 20, 2024 / 14:36 pm

Pope Francis urged the meeting’s participants not to be discouraged by war and the challenges of today but to search out “the beauty of life” with passion.

Archbishop Sebastian Shaw, archbishop of Lahore, Pakistan. Credit: Foreign and Commonwealth Office, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Pakistan archbishop on ‘sabbatical’ after allegations of abuse, fraud

Aug 17, 2024 / 10:51 am

Archbishop Sebastian Shaw, OFM, has been replaced as administrator of the Archdiocese of Lahore, Pakistan, the diocese’s vicar general announced.

On the Vatican website, the Holy See’s communications department used a picture of a Rupnik mosaic of the dormition of Mary at the top of an article for the solemnity of the Assumption of Mary on Aug. 15, 2024. Credit: Screenshot from Vatican News

Rupnik art appears on Vatican website again — and in Pope Francis’ apartment

Aug 16, 2024 / 13:32 pm

Also, last week, a video was published by an Argentine public TV channel that shows a Rupnik image hanging in Pope Francis’ personal apartment.

Vatican peace envoy Cardinal Matteo Zuppi spoke Aug. 14, 2024, with Li Hui, China’s special representative for Eurasian affairs, about the Russia-Ukraine war. The phone conversation was the most recent step in the Vatican’s continued diplomatic efforts to promote lasting peace in the region. Credit: Roberto Serra - Iguana Press/Getty Images; JADE GAO/AFP via Getty Images

Vatican talks to China in continued Russia-Ukraine peace efforts

Aug 16, 2024 / 09:27 am

The phone conversation was the most recent step in the Vatican’s continued diplomatic efforts to promote lasting peace in the region.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (left) and Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin. Credit: Pier Marco Tacca/Getty Images; Horacio Villalobos Corbis/Getty Images

Vatican secretary of state meets Ukrainian president Zelenskyy

Jul 23, 2024 / 13:23 pm

Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin met with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday at the end of a diplomatic visit to the country.