The week at a glance...Europe

London

Pomp for the Iron Lady: Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was laid to rest at St. Paul’s Cathedral this week with a pageantry not seen since Princess Diana’s funeral in 1997. More than 700 soldiers—mostly from units active in the Falklands War against Argentina, which Thatcher presided over—lined the route to the cathedral as her flag-draped coffin passed by in a horse-drawn carriage. Thousands of spectators applauded as the coffin passed, but some booed or turned their backs in protest against Britain’s most polarizing leader of the last century. Hundreds of foreign leaders and dignitaries were present, including former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former Vice President Dick Cheney; Argentina sent no representative.

Rome

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

New broom: Pope Francis is taking on the Vatican’s power brokers. The pope appointed eight cardinals from around the world, including Boston Cardinal Seán O’Malley, to look at ways to reform the Roman Curia, the church hierarchy. That secretive body has been plagued by infighting over the past year, starting with the theft of papal documents and ending with the resignation of Benedict XVI. It has been criticized for encouraging the cover-up of child sex abuse by priests. The pope said priests who preach one thing and do another are “undermining the church’s credibility.” One thing hasn’t changed, though: Pope Francis approved the disciplinary oversight board set in place by his predecessor to rein in American nuns, who the Vatican said focus too much on social justice issues and not enough on ending abortion.