Pope Francis spent Holy Thursday visiting those serving time in a Rome prison.

Despite recovering from a bout of pneumonia, Francis met with dozens of inmates at Regina Coeli prison as he kept an Easter season appointment among the less fortunate. 

Francis offered words of encouragement and gifted inmates with a Rosary and pocket-sized Gospel, according to Vatican News.

“I have always liked coming to prison on Holy Thursday to do the washing of the feet like Jesus,” the pontiff said. “This year, I cannot do it, but I want to be close to you. I pray for you and your families.”

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Francis’ visit lasted about half an hour.

“Every time I enter a place like this, I ask myself: Why them and not me?” Francis said to journalists outside the prison. 

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Pope Francis visited a Rome prison on April 17, 2025. (Andrew Medichini)

The fact that the 88-year-old pope kept the appointment, while under doctors’ orders to take it easy and avoid crowds, was a clear sign of the importance he places on prison ministry and the need for priests to serve those who are most on the margins. That is all the more true during the 2025 Holy Year, which both opened and will close with special papal events for prison inmates.

Francis is expected to make at least some other Easter-time appearances over the coming days, even as cardinals will preside in his place during Holy Week’s busy events.

Security detail escorts Pope Francis as he visits a Rome prison on Holy Thursday.  (Andrew Medichini)

On Sunday, Francis wished a “Happy Palm Sunday and Happy Holy Week” to the faithful gathered in Saint Peter’s Square following the conclusion of a mass presided over by Cardinal Leonardo Sandri on his behalf. It was his first public appearance since being discharged from a hospital, where he was not receiving oxygen via a small hose under his nose.

Fox News Courtney Walsh and The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Judges at the International Criminal Court want Hungary to explain why it failed to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he visited Budapest earlier this month.

In a filing released late on Wednesday, The Hague-based court initiated non-compliance proceedings against Hungary after the country gave Netanyahu a red carpet welcome despite an ICC arrest warrant for crimes against humanity in connection with the war in Gaza.

During the visit, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán announced his country would quit the court, claiming on local radio that the ICC was “no longer an impartial court, not a court of law, but a political court.”

The Hungarian leader, regarded by critics as an autocrat and the EU’s most intransigent spoiler in the bloc’s decision-making, defended his decision to not arrest Netanyahu.

“We signed an international treaty, but we never took all the steps that would otherwise have made it enforceable in Hungary,” Orbán said, referring to the fact that Hungary’s parliament never promulgated the court’s statute into Hungarian law.

Judges at the ICC have previously dismissed similar arguments.

The ICC and other international organisations have criticised Hungary’s defiance of the warrant against Netanyahu.

Days before his arrival, the president of the court’s oversight body wrote to the government in Hungary reminding it of its “specific obligation to comply with requests from the court for arrest and surrender.”

A spokesperson for the ICC declined to comment on the non-compliance proceedings.

Hungary’s decision to leave the ICC, a process that will take at least a year to complete, will make it the sole non-signatory within the 27-member European Union.

With 125 current signatory countries, only the Philippines and Burundi have ever withdrawn from the court as Hungary intends.

It’s the third time in the past year that the court has investigated one of its member states for failing to arrest suspects.

In February, judges asked Italy to explain why the country sent a Libyan man suspected of torture and murder home on an Italian military aircraft rather than handing him over to the court.

While in October judges reported Mongolia to the court’s oversight organisation for failing to arrest Russian President Vladimir Putin when he visited the country.

Hungary has until May 23 to submit evidence in its defence.

A federal judge this week denied a motion to send the Chicago Cubs’ lawsuit against Wrigley View Rooftop—a company that provides 200 guests with a view of neighboring Wrigley Field in exchange for fees—to arbitration. U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman rejected Wrigley View Rooftop’s request that she reconsider her denial in January of the company’s motion to dismiss. 

Last year the Cubs sued Wrigley View Rooftop and company owner Aidan Dunican, claiming that Wrigley View Rooftop engages in illegal conduct by selling seats to watch Cubs games, concerts and other events from an adjacent building. The lawsuit includes claims for misappropriation, unjust enrichment, unfair competition and unauthorized use of Cubs’ trademarks. 

Wrigley View Rooftop denies wrongdoing and insists the dispute must be resolved out-of-court through arbitration. The problem with that argument, Coleman explained, is that the relevant arbitration clause expired in 2023.

That clause stems from the Cubs and rooftop businesses near Wrigley Field, including Wrigley View Rooftop, settling previous litigation back in 2004. The settlement agreements, which contemplated rooftop businesses sharing revenue with the Cubs and contained arbitration clauses, were set to expire in 2023. Those businesses, except for Wrigley View Rooftop, accepted the Cubs’ offers to extend the settlements beyond 2023. 

Last year–after the expiration of the settlement agreement–Wrigley View Rooftop defied the Cubs by selling tickets to games and using Cubs’ trademarks. The company is continuing to sell tickets in the 2025 MLB season and uses the tagline, “the last Wrigley rooftop to be independently owned and operated!”

Wrigley View Rooftop maintains the arbitration language should survive expiration of the settlement agreement. As Wrigley View Rooftop tells it, the dispute is mainly about use of trademarks without permission and whether the Cubs have a right to demand royalties from Wrigley View Rooftop. The company says this dispute concerns a legal right that “accrued or vested” under the settlement agreement, which contemplated royalties in exchange for trademark usage. The Cubs disagree; the team says a plain reading of the settlement agreement makes clear the arbitration language ended when the agreement expired. The idea of contractual rights and restrictions continuing beyond a contract’s expiration doesn’t add up, the team insists.

Coleman agreed with the Cubs, saying she found Wrigley View Rooftop’s argument “unfounded.” After the settlement agreement expired, the judge explained, the Cubs were “not entitled to collect royalties,” and Wrigley View Rooftop was not “entitled to use” Cubs’ trademarks without permission. Along those lines, Coleman noted, the Cubs “do not allege that the expired” settlement provided a right to collect royalties from Wrigley View Rooftop. Instead, the team argues Wrigley View Rooftop “improperly used the trademarks after the expiration of the Settlement Agreement without providing any royalties” to the Cubs.  

According to court filings, pretrial discovery of relevant facts must be completed by the parties by June 12. If the case eventually goes to a jury trial, it could resolve a longstanding property law debate over whether rooftop businesses can lawfully sell seats to watch a live performance taking place in an adjacent and famed building, Wrigley Field, built in 1914.