This is a photo collection curated by AP photo editors.

Artists have captured the hidden world of papal elections for centuries, turning secrecy into spectacle for the public.

Among the regular pilgrims, tourists and assorted onlookers were groups of nuns. There are around 600,000 Catholic nuns ...

Robert Francis Prevost was chosen on Thursday, May 8, to succeed Pope Francis as the head of the Catholic Church.

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Cardinals returned to the Sistine Chapel on Thursday to resume voting for a new pope after the first ...

Here's how the conclave creates black and white smoke and why the Catholic Church began using them to signal whether a new pope has been elected.