MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) — Nicaragua ’s government said Sunday it has proposed suspending relations with the Vatican days after Pope Francis reportedly compared President Daniel Ortega’s administration to a communist or Nazi dictatorship amid a crackdown on the Catholic Church in the Central American country. Relations between the church and the Nicaraguan government have been deteriorating since 2018, when authorities violently repressed...

Conservatives in the Vatican are said to be plotting to put Pope Francis (pictured) under such pressure that he is forced to resign.

Benedict, the first pope in 600 years to resign from the role, died in the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in the Vatican at 9.34am on Saturday. An array of world leaders have honoured the former pope's legacy.

Pope Francis on Sunday appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin for a cease-fire, imploring him to “stop this spiral of violence and death” in Ukraine and denouncing the “absurd” risk of the “uncontrollable” consequences of nuclear attack as tensions sharply escalate over the war. Francis uttered his strongest plea yet about the seventh-month-old conflict, which he denounced as an “error and a horror.” It was the first time in public that he cited Putin's role in the war.