Palace of the Holy Office

The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) is the oldest among the departments of the Roman Curia. Its seat is the Palace of the Holy Office in Rome. It was founded to defend the Catholic Church from heresy and is the body responsible for promulgating and defending Roman Catholic doctrine.Formerly known as the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition (1542–1908); the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office (1908–1965); and then until June 2022 the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF; Latin: Congregatio pro Doctrina Fidei). It is still informally known as the Holy Office (Latin: Sanctum Officium) in many Catholic countries.Founded by Pope Paul III in 21 July 1542, the sole objective of the dicastery is to "spread sound Catholic doctrine and defend those points of Christian tradition which seem in danger because of new and unacceptable doctrines."Its headquarters are at the Palace of the Holy Office, just outside Vatican City. The congregation employs an advisory board including cardinals, bishops, priests, lay theologians, and canon lawyers. The current Cardinal Prefect is Luis Ladaria Ferrer, who was appointed by Pope Francis for a five-year term since 1 July 2017.

The Archive of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (ACDF), commonly referred to as the Archive of the Inquisition (or more fully the Archive of the Inquisition and Index), contains the Catholic Church's documents dealing with doctrinal and theological issues related to church teaching. It also contains information on political trials that were carried out when the papacy had temporal power over the Papal States.

The Embassy of the Philippines to the Holy See is the diplomatic mission of the Republic of the Philippines to the Holy See, the central government of the Roman Catholic Church. Opened in 1957, it is located along Via Paolo VI in the rione of Borgo, part of Municipio I in central Rome along the border between Italy and Vatican City, and across from St. Peter's Square. It is distinct from the larger Embassy of the Philippines in Rome, the Philippines' diplomatic mission to Italy.

Santa Monica degli Agostiniani is a 20th-century Augustinian chapel and titular church in central Rome, immediately south of the Vatican, dedicated to Saint Monica.

The Circus of Nero or Circus of Caligula was a circus in ancient Rome, located mostly in the present-day Vatican City. It was first built under Caligula who was a chariot-racing enthusiast in the Horti Agrippinae villa-estate belonging to Agrippina the Elder, outside the city walls on the left bank of the Tiber.

The Church of Our Lady of Mercy in the Teutonic Cemetery (Latin: Sancta Maria Pietatis in Coemeterio Teutonicorum, Italian: Santa Maria della Pietà in Camposanto dei Teutonici) is a Roman Catholic church in the rione Borgo of Rome, Italy. It is located on the Via della Sagrestia. The building lies near the Vatican City, is attached and adjacent to the Collegio Teutonico, and the German Teutonic Cemetery in Vatican City. The site belonged to the Schola Francorum, a hospice for German pilgrims which was the oldest German institution in Rome. The church, lying in piazza Protomartiri Romani, is in the area of the Palazzo del Sant'Uffizo, which belongs to Italy but according to the Lateran treaty has an extraterritorial status in favour of the Holy See. The term "Teutonico" is a reference to the Germanic peoples. The church is the National Church in Rome of Austria, Germany, and the Netherlands.

The Vatican Christmas Tree, also called the Saint Peter's Square Christmas Tree, is the decorated tree that is erected annually in the Saint Peter's Square directly in front of St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican City to celebrate the Christmas holiday season. The tradition of placing a Christmas tree as well as the life-size Nativity scene in Saint Peter's Square started in 1982 during the pontificate of Pope John Paul II, when the Polish-born Pope introduced the northern European symbol of Christmas spirit. The tradition of erecting a Christmas Tree was celebrated in northern Europe and in Poland, Pope John Paul II's country of origin, but not in the Vatican at the time. The first tree came from Italy. Since then, the offering of the Christmas Tree to the Pope has become an honour, and each year the Vatican accepts a tree donated by a different European country or region.The Christmas tree is installed in the centre of Saint Peter's Square, together with a life-size nativity scene that is unveiled on Christmas Eve. The nativity scene has seventeen life-size statues. Of these, nine are the original figures donated in 1842 by Saint Vincent Pallotti for the nativity scene in the Roman church of Sant'Andrea della Valle, and the other eight figures were added over the course of the years. In 2006 the Italian province of Trentino, and the local council of a village of Tesero, have provided a further thirteen sculpted wooden figures and animals, as well as household utensils for the depiction of daily life.

The Vatican sexual abuse summit, officially the Meeting on the Protection of Minors in the Church (Italian: Incontro su “La Protezione dei Minori nella Chiesa”), was a four-day Catholic Church summit meeting in Vatican City that ran from 21 to 24 February 2019, convened by Pope Francis to discuss preventing sexual abuse by Catholic Church clergy.

The Paul VI Audience Hall (Italian: Aula Paolo VI) also known as the Hall of the Pontifical Audiences is a building in Rome named for Pope Paul VI with a seating capacity of 6,300, designed in reinforced concrete by the Italian architect Pier Luigi Nervi and completed in 1971. It was constructed on land donated by the Knights of Columbus.It lies partially in the Vatican City but mostly in Italy: the Italian part of the building is treated as an extraterritorial area of the Holy See, and is used by the Pope as an alternative to Saint Peter's Square when conducting his Wednesday morning General Audience. It is dominated by an 800-quintal (80-tonne) bronze/copper-alloy sculpture by Pericle Fazzini entitled La Resurrezione (Italian for The Resurrection). A smaller meeting hall, known as Synod Hall (Aula del Sinodo), is located in the building as well. This hall sits at the east end on a second floor.

Saint Peter's Square (Latin: Forum Sancti Petri, Italian: Piazza San Pietro [ˈpjattsa sam ˈpjɛːtro],) is a large plaza located directly in front of St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City, the papal enclave in Rome, directly west of the neighborhood (rione) of Borgo. Both the square and the basilica are named after Saint Peter, an apostle of Jesus whom Catholics consider to be the first Pope. At the centre of the square is an ancient Egyptian obelisk, erected at the current site in 1586. Gian Lorenzo Bernini designed the square almost 100 years later, including the massive Doric colonnades, four columns deep, which embrace visitors in "the maternal arms of Mother Church". A granite fountain constructed by Bernini in 1675 matches another fountain designed by Carlo Maderno in 1613.

On 13 May 1981, in St. Peter's Square in Vatican City, Pope John Paul II was shot and wounded by Mehmet Ali Ağca while he was entering the square. The Pope was struck twice and suffered severe blood loss. Ağca was apprehended immediately and later sentenced to life in prison by an Italian court. The Pope later forgave Ağca for the assassination attempt. He was pardoned by Italian president Carlo Azeglio Ciampi at the Pope's request and was deported to Turkey in June 2000. Ağca converted to Roman Catholicism in 2007.

The Collegio Teutonico (German College), historically often referred to by its Latin name Collegium Germanicum, is one of the Pontifical Colleges of Rome. The German College is the Pontifical College established for future ecclesiastics of German nationality. It is divided into two separate colleges; the Pontificio Collegio Teutonico di S. Maria dell’ Anima and the Collegio Teutonico del Campo Santo.