Vatican News

CNA Staff, Jun 15, 2025 / 04:00 am (CNA).

The last four popes of the Catholic Church — John Paul II, Benedict XVI, Francis, and our new pope, Leo XIV — had hardworking fathers who instilled in each of their sons important traits and values, many of which can be seen in the way they lived out their priesthoods and carried out their papacies.

Here’s a look at the dads behind the last four Holy Fathers:

Louis Marius Prevost was born in Chicago on July 28, 1920, and was of Italian and French descent. Soon after graduating from college, he served in the Navy during World War II and in November 1943 became the executive officer of a tank landing ship. Prevost also participated in the D-Day landings in Normandy on June 6, 1944, as part of Operation Overlord. He spent 15 months overseas and attained the rank of lieutenant junior grade before the war finally ended. 

After coming home, Prevost became the superintendent of Brookwood School District 167, an elementary school district in Glenwood, Illinois. In 1949 he married Mildred Agnes Martinez, another Chicagoan and a school librarian. Prevost died on Nov. 8, 1997, at the age of 77 from colon cancer and atherosclerotic heart disease.  

According to the , in a 2024 interview on Italian television, the future pope recalled a time where he confided in his father about leaving the junior seminary he was attending to get married and have a family. 

“Maybe it would be better I leave this life and get married; I want to have children, a normal life,” then-Cardinal Prevost recalled saying to his father at the time.

His father responded by telling him that “the intimacy between him and my mom” was important, but so was the intimacy between a priest and the love of God.

“There’s something to listen to here,” the future pope recalled thinking.

Mario Jose Bergoglio was born on April 2, 1908, in Turin, Italy. In 1929, he and his family emigrated from Italy to Argentina to flee from the fascist rule of Benito Mussolini. In Argentina, he worked as an accountant and was employed by the Argentine railways, a stable and respected position at the time. He married Regina María Sívori in 1935 and they had five children — the eldest being the future Pope Francis. Mario Jose Bergoglio died at the age of 51 in 1959. 

The Bergoglio family lived in a working-class area of Buenos Aires where the senior Bergoglio’s line of work undoubtedly shaped his own view of fatherhood and family life. Although the late pope did not say much publicly about his relationship with his own father, he often spoke about the importance of fathers and the need for them to be present in their children’s lives, exhorting them to be patient and forgiving and to correct their children without humiliating them. Francis often cited St. Joseph as a role model for all fathers.

Joseph Ratzinger Sr. was born on March 6, 1877, in Winzer, Germany. Beginning in 1902, he worked as a policeman. In 1920, at the age of 43, he married Maria Peintner. Joseph Alois Ratzinger, who grew up to become Pope Benedict XVI, was the third and youngest child in the family.

Ratzinger Sr. was a devout Catholic and strongly opposed the Nazi regime. He often refused to obey their orders to persecute opponents and as a result was harassed by the Nazi hierarchy. In order to avoid sanctions, he frequently had to change posts. On Aug. 25, 1959, he died at the age of 82.

During the in 2012, Pope Benedict spoke about memories he had of his father and his family growing up.

“The most important moment for our family was always Sunday, but Sunday really began on Saturday afternoon,” he recalled. “My father would read out the Sunday readings from a book that was very popular in Germany at that time, which also included explanations of the texts. That is how we began our Sunday, entering into the liturgy in an atmosphere of joy.” 

Karol Wojtyla Sr. was born on July 18, 1879, in Bielsko-Biała, Poland. He was a tailor by trade but in 1900 was called up for the Astro-Hungarian Army in which he spent a total of 28 years. After Poland regained its independence, he was admitted to the Polish Army where he served as a lieutenant until he retired in 1928. 

Wojtyla Sr. married Emilia Kaczorowska and together they had three children — Edmund, Olga (who died in infancy), and Karol, who would later become Pope John Paul II. In 1929, Emilia died due to heart and kidney problems and three years later Edmund died from scarlet fever. This left Wojtyla Sr. to care for his son Karol on his own. In 1938, he and Karol moved to Kraków so that the boy could attend Jagiellonian University. Wojtyla Sr. died on Feb. 18, 1941, at the age of 61.

Pope John Paul II frequently spoke about his father’s faith and how it inspired his vocation to the priesthood. 

The Polish pope once of his father: “Day after day I was able to observe the austere way in which he lived. By profession he was a soldier and, after my mother’s death, his life became one of constant prayer. Sometimes I would wake up during the night and find my father on his knees, just as I would always see him kneeling in the parish church. We never spoke about a vocation to the priesthood, but his example was in a way my first seminary, a kind of domestic seminary.”

Vatican City, Jun 14, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).

Following the June 11 general audience, Pope Leo XIV spoke with young people who have embarked on a “” to restore Europe’s soul.

Fernando Moscardó, 22, coordinates the initiative, titled “Rome ‘25-the Way of St. James ‘27-Jerusalem ‘33,” which aims to tell the world that “another Europe is possible” through pilgrimages, evangelization, and healing.

Shortly after meeting with the Holy Father in St. Peter’s Square, the young Spanish medical student told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, that the meeting “was awesome.”

“It was an overwhelming experience, filled with great joy, both for him and for us at that moment. To give [information on] this project to the vicar of Christ on earth, well, imagine, it’s something spectacular,” he emphasized.

Moscardó, along with his classmate Patricia and the bishop of Palencia, Mikel Garciandía, were able to explain the initiative to the Holy Father, which aims to open up a pathway to faith and hope for a new European generation in view of the Jubilee of the Redemption, which will be celebrated in 2033.

During the month of June, local pilgrimages are being held throughout Europe, culminating on Aug. 1 with the proclamation of a “Manifesto of the Young Christians of Europe” in St. Mary’s Basilica in Trastevere, Rome.

According to Moscardó, Pope Leo XIV assured them that he “would follow it closely.” They also invited him to participate in the signing of the manifesto.

“Just as we invite all young people and all those who empathize with and are close to young people and who truly dream of this new generation,” Moscardó said.

He also stated that, when the meeting with the pontiff ended, “it was hard for us to realize what we had just experienced, it was hard for us to bring our feet back to earth, we couldn’t believe it.”

“We know this is just another step along the way, that this doesn’t mean everything is done; on the contrary, everything remains to be done, especially knowing that we now have the Holy Father’s watchful eye,” Moscardó indicated.

“We are under even more pressure, if possible,” the young man continued, “to ensure everything goes perfectly and for this manifesto to truly be the united voice of young Christians who seek with the thirst of Christ this new generation.”

The organizers are working on a website to provide all the necessary information about the activities as well as on their social media channels, which will be called J2R2033 (Journey to Redemption 2033). 

After the audience with Pope Leo XIV, they met with the organizers of the Jubilee of Hope in preparation for Aug. 1, when the manifesto will be signed.

“In the afternoon, we had another meeting at St. Mary’s in Trastevere to begin finalizing details for this great celebration in which we wish to proclaim this united voice of Europe, calling for a new generation with soul and centered anew in Christ,” he concluded.

Vatican City, Jun 13, 2025 / 17:39 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV will canonize seven blesseds on Oct. 19, including José Gregorio Hernández Cisneros, considered the “,” and María del Carmen Rendiles Martínez, a nun and founder of the Sister Slaves of Jesus.

The canonizations were confirmed by the Holy See Press Office on June 13 following the decision by the pope during the first consistory of his pontificate.

In addition to Hernández and Rendiles, who are highly venerated in Latin America, the blesseds who will be proclaimed saints in October are: Ignazio Choukrallah Maloyan, an Armenian bishop and martyr killed in 1915 during the Ottoman genocide; Peter To Rot, a lay catechist from Papua New Guinea, martyred during the Japanese occupation in World War II; Vincenza Maria Poloni, founder of the Congregation of the Sisters of Mercy of Verona; Maria Troncatti, an Italian Salesian missionary known for her work among the Shuar Indigenous people of Ecuador; and Bartolo Longo, an Italian lawyer, former Satanic priest converted to Catholicism, promoter of the recitation of the rosary, and founder of the Shrine of Our Lady of the Rosary of Pompeii.

This consistory, held in the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace, was originally convened by Pope Francis at the end of February while he was hospitalized, although no specific date was set at the time.

At that meeting with cardinals, Leo XIV also decreed that Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati would also be canonized along with Blessed on Sept. 7. This will be the first canonization ceremony presided over by the new pontiff.

Vatican City, Jun 13, 2025 / 17:09 pm (CNA).

The Vatican has recognized two miracles attributed to Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati’s intercession that make possible his canonization on Sept. 7. The most recent miracle involved the healing of an American seminarian.

Frassati, who died at the age of 24 in 1925, is beloved by many Catholic young people today for his enthusiastic witness to holiness that reaches “to the heights.”

The young man from the northern Italian city of Turin was an avid mountaineer and Third Order Dominican known for his charitable outreach.

Pope Leo XIV s on Sept. 7 as the first new saints declared in his pontificate.

Pope Francis recognized the miraculous healing in a decree on Nov. 25, 2024, of a seminarian of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles who was ordained a priest in June 2023.

Father Juan Gutierrez, 38, then a seminarian at St. John’s Seminary in Camarillo, California, tore his Achilles tendon while playing basketball with other seminarians in 2017. 

Concerned about the long and painful recovery and expenses, Gutierrez headed for the seminary chapel the day after getting an MRI “with a heavy heart.” 

As he prayed, Gutierrez felt inspired to make a novena to Frassati. A few days into the novena, Gutierrez went into the chapel to pray when nobody was there. As he prayed, he recalled feeling an unusual sensation around his injured foot.

“I was praying, and I started to feel a sensation of heat around the area of my injury. And I honestly thought that maybe something was catching on fire, underneath the pews,” Gutierrez recalled at a press conference on Dec. 16, 2024, at St. John the Baptist Parish in Los Angeles County, where he now serves as an associate pastor. 

The seminarian remembered from his experiences with the charismatic renewal movement that heat can be associated with healing from God. He found himself gazing at the tabernacle, weeping. 

“That event touched me deeply,” Gutierrez said.

He was not only touched spiritually, but he was also healed physically. Incredibly, he was able to walk normally again and no longer needed a brace.

Monsignor Robert Sarno, a former official of the Vatican Dicastery for the Causes of Saints who served as the archiepiscopal delegate in the diocesan process in Los Angeles that examined the healing, told CNA that when Gutierrez went to the orthopedic surgeon a week later, “the orthopedic surgeon, after seeing the MRI and conducting physical investigations, said to him, ‘You must have someone in heaven who likes you.’”

Gutierrez was able to immediately resume playing the sports that he loved without any difficulties. The healing was verified by a diocesan inquiry and the examination of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints’ medical board, theologians, and the cardinals and bishops.

Sarno noted that it is fitting that a young man playing basketball received the healing given that Frassati was known for his love of sport and outdoor activities.

Born on Holy Saturday, April 6, 1901, Frassati was the son of the founder and director of the Italian newspaper La Stampa.

At the age of 17, he joined the St. Vincent de Paul Society and dedicated much of his spare time to taking care of the poor, the homeless, and the sick as well as demobilized servicemen returning from World War I.

Frassati was also involved in the Apostleship of Prayer and Catholic Action. He obtained permission to receive daily Communion.

On a photograph of what would be his last climb, Frassati wrote the phrase, “Verso L’Alto,” which means “to the heights.” This phrase has become a motto for Catholics inspired by Frassati to strive for the summit of eternal life with Christ.

Frassati died of polio on July 4, 1925. His doctors later speculated that the young man had caught polio while serving the sick.

Pope John Paul II, who beatified Frassati in 1990, called him a “man of the Eight Beatitudes,” describing him as “entirely immersed in the mystery of God and totally dedicated to the constant service of his neighbor.”

For Gutierrez, his healing is a reminder “that prayer works.” 

“The saints can help us to pray for our needs and that there is somebody listening to our prayers,” he said. “God is always listening to our prayers.”

Vatican City, Jun 13, 2025 / 16:39 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV stated that “the gravest poverty is not to know God” and that having him accompany us on the journey of life puts material wealth into perspective, because “we discover the real treasure that we need.”

“Wealth often disappoints and can lead to tragic situations of poverty — above all the poverty born of the failure to recognize our need for God and of the attempt to live without him,” the pontiff noted.

The Holy Father made these observations in , released June 13 by the Vatican press office, for the ninth World Day of the Poor, which will be held on Sunday, Nov. 16.

As Pope Francis did when he decried the globalization of indifference, Pope Leo warned of the risk of “becoming hardened and resigned” in the face of new forms of impoverishment.

He thus framed the social responsibility of promoting the common good, which characterizes the Catholic Church, as grounded in “God’s creative act, which gives everyone a share in the goods of the earth,” and like these goods, “the fruits of human labor should be equally accessible to all.” 

The pontiff quoted St. Augustine on the subject: “You give bread to a hungry person; but it would be better if none were hungry, so that you would have no need to give it away. You clothe the naked, but would that all were clothed and that there be no need for supply this lack.”

The Holy Father made it clear that helping the poor is “a matter of justice before it is a question of charity.” He also noted how when we encounter poor or impoverished people, sometimes “we too may have less than before and are losing what once seemed secure: a home, sufficient food for each day, access to health care and a good education, information, religious freedom, and freedom of expression.”

For the pontiff, the World Day of the Poor seeks to remind the Church that the poor are “at the heart of all our pastoral activity,” not only of its ”charitable work but also of the message that she celebrates and proclaims.”

“God took on their poverty in order to enrich us through their voices, their stories, and their faces,” he noted in the message he signed June 13, the feast of St. Anthony of Padua, the patron saint of the poor.

In fact, in the text he made it clear that the poor “are not a distraction for the Church but our beloved brothers and sisters.” In this sense, he emphasized that “by their lives, their words, and their wisdom, they put us in contact with the truth of the Gospel.”

The Holy Father emphasized in his message that the poor are not mere “recipients” of the Church’s pastoral care but rather defined them as “creative subjects” who challenge us “to find novel ways of living out the Gospel today.”

In this way, he pointed out that every form of poverty is a call “to experience the Gospel concretely and to offer effective signs of hope.”

The pope noted how people without resources can become witnesses of a “a strong and steadfast hope, precisely because they embody it in the midst of uncertainty, poverty, instability, and marginalization.”

“They cannot rely on the security of power and possessions; on the contrary, they are at their mercy and often victims of them. Their hope must necessarily be sought elsewhere,” he added.

Thus, he indicated that when God is placed at the center as “our first and only hope,” it is precisely when “we too pass from fleeting hopes to a lasting hope.”

The pontiff cited the encyclical of his predecessor, Pope Francis, who stated that the worst discrimination suffered by the poor is “the lack of spiritual care.”

“This is a rule of faith and the secret of hope: All this earth’s goods, material realities, worldly pleasures, economic prosperity, however important, cannot bring happiness to our hearts,” he emphasized.

The Holy Father also reflected on the “circular relationship” that exists between the three theological virtues: faith, hope, and charity. “Hope is born of faith, which nourishes and sustains it on the foundation of charity, the mother of all virtues. All of us need charity, here and now,” he said.

Pope Leo therefore affirmed that charity is a reality that “engages us and guides our decisions toward the common good” and pointed out that “those who lack charity not only lack faith and hope; they also rob their neighbors of hope.”

Referring specifically to the Christian hope that the Word of God proclaims, he noted that it is a “certainty at every step of life’s journey” because it does not depend on human strength “but on the promise of God, who is always faithful.”

For this reason, he said that Christians, from the beginning, have sought to identify hope with the symbol of the anchor, which provides stability and security. “Amid life’s trials, our hope is inspired by the firm and reassuring certainty of God’s love, poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. That hope does not disappoint,” he reiterated.

Therefore, Leo emphasized that the biblical summons to hope entails “the duty to shoulder our responsibilities in history, without hesitation,” noting that “charity, in fact, is the greatest social commandment,” as stated in No. 1889 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

The pontiff explained that “poverty has structural causes that must be addressed and eliminated. In the meantime, each of us is called to offer new signs of hope that will bear witness to Christian charity, just as many saints have done over the centuries.”

For the pope, hospitals and schools are institutions created to reach out to the most vulnerable and marginalized, and they “should be part of every country’s public policy.” However, he lamented that “wars and inequalities often prevent this from happening.”

He also highlighted as concrete examples of hope “group homes, communities for minors, centers for listening and acceptance, soup kitchens, homeless shelters, and schools for low-income students.” 

And, he added: “How many of these quiet signs of hope often go unnoticed and yet are so important for setting aside our indifference and inspiring others to become involved in various forms of volunteer work!”

Finally, he called for promoting the development of policies to combat “forms of poverty both old and new, as well as implementing new initiatives to support and assist the poorest of the poor.”

“Labor, education, housing, and health are the foundations of a security that will never be attained by the use of arms. I express my appreciation for those initiatives that already exist, and for the efforts demonstrated daily on the international level by great numbers of men and women of goodwill,” he said.

Vatican City, Jun 13, 2025 / 15:09 pm (CNA).

It’s official! Pope Leo XIV on Sept. 7 together with Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati as the first new saints of his pontificate. A gamer and computer coder who loved the Eucharist, Carlo Acutis will be the first millennial Catholic saint.

So who is Blessed Carlo? Here’s what you need to know:

1. Carlo Acutis was born May 3, 1991, in London, where his father was working. Just a few months later, he moved with his parents, Andrea Acutis and Antonia Salzano, to Milan, Italy, where he grew up.

2. Carlo was diagnosed with leukemia as a teenager. Before his death in 2006, he offered his sufferings for Pope Benedict XVI and for the Church, saying: “I offer all of my suffering to the Lord for the pope and for the Church in order not to go to purgatory but to go straight to heaven.”

3. From a young age, Carlo had a special love for God, even though his parents weren’t especially devout. Antonia Salzano, his mom, said that before Carlo, she went to Mass only for her first Communion, her confirmation, and her wedding. But as a young child, Carlo loved to pray the rosary. After he made his first Communion, he went to Mass as often as possible at the parish across from his elementary school. Carlo’s love for the Eucharist also According to the postulator promoting his cause for sainthood, he “managed to drag his relatives, his parents to Mass every day. It was not the other way around; it was not his parents bringing the little boy to Mass, but it was he who managed to get himself to Mass and to convince others to receive Communion daily.” Salzano spoke to “EWTN News Nightly” in October 2023 about her son’s devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. She said: “He used to say, ‘There are queues in front of a concert, in front of a football match, but I don’t see these queues in front of the Blessed Sacrament’ ... So, for him the Eucharist was the center of his life.”

4. Carlo’s witness of faith as a child led adults to convert and be baptized. Rajesh Mohur, who worked for the Acutis family as an au pair when Carlo was young, because of Carlo’s witness. Carlo taught Mohur how to pray the rosary and told him about the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Mohur said that one of the things that most impressed him as a non-Christian was the witness of Carlo’s love and concern for the poor — how he interacted with the homeless man who would sit at the entrance of the church and would bring tupperware dishes filled with food out to people living on the streets.

5. Carlo wasn’t afraid to defend Church teaching, even in situations when his classmates disagreed with him. Many of Carlo’s high school classmates remember Carlo giving a passionate defense for the protection of life from the moment of conception when there was a classroom discussion about abortion. 

6. Carlo was a faithful friend. He was known for standing up for kids at school who got bullied, particularly a classmate with special needs. When a friend’s parents were getting a divorce, Carlo made a special effort to include his friend in the Acutis’ family life. With his friends, he spoke about the importance of going to Mass and confession, human dignity, and chastity.

7. Carlo was fascinated with computer coding and taught himself some of the basic coding languages, including C and C++. He used his computer skills and internet savvy to help his family put together an that has gone on to be displayed at thousands of parishes on five continents. His spiritual director has attested that Carlo was personally convinced that the scientific evidence from Eucharistic miracles would help people to realize that Jesus is really present in the Eucharist and come back to Mass.

8. Carlo loved playing video games. His mother recalls that he liked Nintendo Game Boy and GameCube as well as PlayStation and Xbox. He had conversations with his gaming buddies about the importance of going to Mass and confession and limited his video game playing to no more than two hours per week. Carlo also liked Spider-Man and Pokémon.

9. Carlo died on Oct. 12, 2006, and was buried in Assisi. Initially, there were reports that Carlo’s body was found to be incorrupt, but the His body lies in repose in a glass tomb in Assisi where he can be seen in jeans and a pair of Nike sneakers. Thousands came to pray at his tomb at the time of

10. Pope Francis recognized a second miracle attributed to Carlo’s intercession in a decree on May 23, 2024. involved the healing of a 21-year-old girl from Costa Rica named Valeria Valverde who was near death after seriously injuring her head in a bicycle accident while studying in Florence in 2022. The that led to his beatification involved the healing of a 3-year-old boy in Brazil in 2013 who had been diagnosed with a malformation of his pancreas since birth.

Vatican City, Jun 13, 2025 / 04:42 am (CNA).

The Vatican announced Friday that Blessed Carlo Acutis and Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, two young Catholics beloved for their vibrant faith and witness to holiness, will be canonized together on Sept. 7.

The date was set during the first ordinary public consistory of cardinals of Pope Leo XIV’s pontificate, held June 13 at the Apostolic Palace. Acutis, who died of leukemia in 2006 at age 15, will become the first millennial to be declared a saint by the Catholic Church.

Acutis’ canonization had originally been scheduled for April 27 during the Vatican’s Jubilee of Teenagers. That ceremony was postponed following the death of Pope Francis on April 21. Despite the change, thousands of young pilgrims from around the world who had traveled to Rome for Acutis’ canonization attended the late pope’s funeral and the jubilee Mass, which drew an estimated 200,000 people.

In an unexpected move, the consistory also decided to move the date for Frassati’s canonization, which had been set for Aug. 3 during the Jubilee of Youth.

Acutis, an Italian computer-coding teenager who died of cancer in 2006, is known for his great devotion to the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.

He became the first millennial to be beatified by the Catholic Church in 2020 and is widely popular among Catholics, particularly youth. Known for his deep faith and digital savvy, he used his computer-coding skills to draw attention to Eucharistic miracles around the world. His miracles’ exhibit, featuring more than 100 documented miracles involving the Eucharist throughout history, has since traveled to thousands of parishes across five continents.

The Vatican formally recognized a second miracle attributed to Acutis’ intercession on May 23, 2024. The case involved the healing of 21-year-old Valeria Valverde of Costa Rica, who sustained a serious brain injury in a bicycle accident while studying in Florence in 2022. She was not expected to survive but recovered after her mother prayed for Acutis’ intercession at his tomb in Assisi.

Born in London in 1991 and raised in Milan, Acutis attended daily Mass from a young age and was passionate about the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. Shortly after his first Communion at the age of 7, Carlo told his mother: “To always be united to Jesus: This is my life plan.”

Carlo called the Eucharist “my highway to heaven,” and he did all in his power to make the Real Presence known. His witness inspired his parents to return to practicing the Catholic faith and his Hindu au pair to convert and be baptized.

Many of Carlo’s classmates, friends, and family members testified to the Vatican how he brought them closer to God. He is remembered for saying: “People who place themselves before the sun get a tan; people who place themselves before the Eucharist become saints.”

Shortly before his death, Acutis offered his suffering from cancer “for the pope and for the Church” and expressed a desire to go “straight to heaven.”

Known as a cheerful and kind child with a love for animals, video games, and technology, Acutis’ life has inspired documentaries, digital evangelization projects, and the founding of schools in his name. His legacy continues to resonate strongly with a new generation of Catholics.

Frassati, who died at the age of 24 in 1925, is also beloved by many today for his enthusiastic witness to holiness that reaches “to the heights.”

The young man from the northern Italian city of Turin was an avid mountaineer and Third Order Dominican known for his charitable outreach.

Born on Holy Saturday, April 6, 1901, Frassati was the son of the founder and director of the Italian newspaper La Stampa.

At the age of 17, he joined the St. Vincent de Paul Society and dedicated much of his spare time to taking care of the poor, the homeless, and the sick as well as demobilized servicemen returning from World War I.

Frassati was also involved in the Apostleship of Prayer and Catholic Action. He obtained permission to receive daily Communion.

On a photograph of what would be his last climb, Frassati wrote the phrase “Verso L’Alto,” which means “to the heights.” This phrase has become a motto for Catholics inspired by Frassati to strive for the summit of eternal life with Christ.

Frassati died of polio on July 4, 1925. His doctors later speculated that the young man had caught polio while serving the sick.

Pope John Paul II, who beatified Frassati in 1990, called him a “man of the Eight Beatitudes,” describing him as “entirely immersed in the mystery of God and totally dedicated to the constant service of his neighbor.”

The canonization Mass for Acutis and Frassati is expected to take place in St. Peter’s Square.

During Friday’s consistory, the College of Cardinals approved the upcoming canonizations of seven other blesseds, including Bartolo Longo, José Gregorio Hernández, Peter To Rot, Vincenza Maria Poloni, Ignazio Choukrallah Maloyan, María del Monte Carmelo Rendiles Martínez, and Maria Troncatti, who will be canonized together on Oct. 19.

Vatican City, Jun 12, 2025 / 15:47 pm (CNA).

A leader of the Catholic charismatic renewal said he believes that charismatics will enjoy harmonious relations with Pope Leo XIV following a mixed experience with Pope Francis, whose efforts to centralize the grassroots movement at the Vatican raised concerns among some members.

“I truly believe Pope Leo will be very supportive of the renewal and of other lay movements,” said Shayne Bennett, the director of mission and faith formation at the Holy Spirit Seminary in Brisbane, Australia. “What we do know about him was that he was supportive of the charismatic renewal in his own diocese back in Peru.”

Bennett spoke in Rome following a June 9–12 meeting of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal International Service (CHARIS), a Rome-based umbrella group established by Francis for charismatic movements worldwide. Bennett serves as CHARIS coordinator of the commission of communities.

Pope Francis was not initially supportive of charismatic movements in his native Argentina. In a with the president and members of the National Council of Renewal in the Holy Spirit, the late pontiff said he had once likened the group to “samba school and not an ecclesial movement.”

During the meeting, Francis promoted the role of CHARIS as a coordinating organization to support smaller charismatic groups around the world and encouraged the movement to “take to heart the indications I have left you” and “journey on this road of communion” with other movements in accord with the Vatican body. 

Not all charismatics welcomed the policy, Bennett said.

“I think there’s always a reaction when leaders are decisive,” the CHARIS leader told CNA. “The fact that Pope Francis gave us three goals, if you like, some people would see that as controlling.”

Francis charged the “spiritists” with three “forms of witness” when he in 2019: baptism in the Holy Spirit, unity and communion, and service to the poor.      

Bennett stressed that Francis encouraged the charismatic renewal, along with other lay movements, like Pope Benedict XVI and John Paul II before him. The Australian met multiple times with all three popes.

The first pope to formally back the Catholic charismatic renewal was Paul VI when he appointed Cardinal Léon Joseph Suenens as the first cardinal delegate and episcopal adviser for the movement in 1974.

In his apostolic exhortation , which was released in 1975 on the 10th anniversary of the close of the Second Vatican Council, Paul VI described smaller charismatic groups as “hope for the universal Church.”

According to Bennett, who conducted programs in East and West Africa with CHARIS, supportive bishops in the region view the charismatic renewal as a realization of John Paul II’s dream for a “new evangelization” and Benedict XVI’s desire for all baptized Catholics to take “responsibility for their participation” in Jesus’ mission in the life of the Church and the world. 

“There’s been an incredible continuity of support and encouragement, which I expect will continue,” Bennett told CNA.

Vatican City, Jun 12, 2025 / 09:22 am (CNA).

The priests of Rome met for the first time on Thursday with their new bishop, Pope Leo XIV, to whom they are looking for greater leadership and fatherly care after several years of administrative disruption.

“We are very hopeful; you perceive a lot of enthusiasm, anyway, whether from brother priests or from the people of God,” the 32-year-old newly ordained Father Simone Troilo told CNA this month. “The fact that he even set this meeting [with priests] as a priority a little more than a month after his election … is a very important sign as well.”

The pope is not only the head of the universal Catholic Church, but he is also the bishop of the Diocese of Rome, though he does not manage the diocese like a typical diocesan bishop. A cardinal vicar general, vice regent (deputy), and auxiliary bishops are responsible for the ordinary running of the diocese.

Just over a month since Leo’s election, priests of the diocese told CNA there is a lot of excitement for the new pope and interest in how he will lead the Church in Rome as it confronts shifts in religious and ethnic demographics amid an overall loss of religious practice in the diverse and sprawling diocese.

Leo asked priests in the meeting June 12 “to pay attention to the pastoral journey of this Church, which is local but, because of who guides it, is also universal.” He promised to walk alongside them as they seek communion, fraternity, and serenity.

Several hundred priests attended the audience, the first with their new bishop, in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall.

According to Cardinal Baldassare Reina, the vicar general of Rome, there are 8,020 priests and deacons currently in the diocese, of which 809 are permanent Rome diocesan priests, and most of the remaining are part of religious communities or doing advanced studies.

Jesuit Father Anthony Lusvardi, a sacramental theologian in Rome, told CNA that “the Diocese of Rome is meant to be an example for the rest of the world” and “setting the right tone here will have an effect elsewhere.”

Leo’s speech underlined the importance of a strong communion and fraternity among the diocesan community and hinted at the challenge of “certain ‘internal’ obstacles,” along with interpersonal relationships and the weariness of feeling misunderstood or not heard.

Multiple priests who spoke to CNA expressed a strong desire to have a clear point of reference in the diocese, underlining that two of the diocese’s four sectors have not had auxiliary bishops for months.

Pope Francis’ publication of a new constitution for the diocese in January 2023, the first major change in 25 years, launched a series of organizational shifts for the ecclesiastical territory, many involving personnel. It also downgraded the role of the vicar general, giving final decision power on some issues to the pope.

Over 10 months starting in April 2024, five of seven auxiliary bishops were transferred to new positions outside of the Diocese of Rome. A few were replaced in the meantime, but two sectors — north and east — remain without auxiliary bishops.

At that time, Pope Francis also of nearly seven years, Cardinal Angelo De Donatis. The two had clashed over issues for several years, going back to 2020, when the vicar general publicly called out the pope’s during the initial outbreak of COVID-19 in Italy.

Francis officially replaced De Donatis half a year later with , a relative newcomer to Rome and former auxiliary bishop of the diocese who has also kept his responsibilities over the western zone of the city in addition to the heavy workload of a vicar general.

“It was very difficult the last two, three years” when the leadership kept changing, Father Esron Antony Samy, a member of the Order of the Mother of God, told CNA.

The administrator of a large parish in the troubled Torre Maura neighborhood on Rome’s eastern outskirts, Samy said he and his assistant have found the changes and instability in the diocesan curia over the last few years challenging. “We couldn’t follow one guide for the spiritual and pastoral activities,” he said.

Following the June 12 meeting with Leo, Samy said he was flooded with motivation and excitement from the pope’s encouragement to face challenges with faith and hope, and that he felt a fatherly presence in the hall.

Father Simone Caleffi, a theology teacher at a private Rome university and an editor for the Vatican’s L’Osservatore Romano newspaper, said he hopes Pope Leo will complete the implementation of the legislative changes Francis introduced, including the appointment of the missing auxiliary bishops for the north and east zones of the city.

“I am somewhat interpreting the feelings I have heard, even in some meetings, that it is hoped that these figures, who are essential guides for us, may return, if that is the will of the Holy Father,” Father Maurizio Modugno, ordained in 2005, said.

Troilo was one of 11 men ordained to the priesthood by Pope Leo in St. Peter’s Basilica on May 31 after the original ordination date of May 10 was postponed by Francis’ death and the “sede vacante.”

The young priest, who has been assigned to a parish in the southwestern periphery of Rome, said that for him it was another sign of Leo’s solicitude and deep care for the diocese that he did not want to further delay their ordinations or delegate another bishop to celebrate it.

According to Father John D’Orazio, Pope John Paul II was the first to ordain priests of the diocese himself, a practice that grew the connection between pontiff and diocese, and was continued by each of his successors. 

D’Orazio, who is from New Hampshire but has spent the 22 years of his priestly ministry in Rome, noted that John Paul II would also visit Rome’s major seminary every year for the feast of Our Lady of Trust.

Pope Francis did not observe that tradition during his pontificate. “My hope is that Pope Leo will again give time and value to having some contact with the Roman seminary,” D’Orazio said. 

John Paul II also tried to spend as much time as possible with the people of Rome; he managed throughout his long pontificate. During his final years, when he was too ill to travel to them, he invited the remaining 16 parishes to come to the Vatican.

Pope Francis in his 12 years as pope made , mostly concentrated in the city’s outskirts, part of his great attention to the peripheries, which was also reflected in his visits to many of the city’s prisons and charitable entities.

Father Samy, from India but in Rome since 2011 to study and since 2013 as a priest, said his parish celebrates large numbers of the sacraments of initiation — baptism, first holy Communion, and confirmation — but many parents are unmarried and do not understand the importance of the sacrament of matrimony.

Father Claudio Occhipinti, who has spent many of his 30 years in priestly ministry helping families in crisis, also identified a need for a renewal of belief in the value of the sacramental union of husband and wife and the problem of the growing number of what he called “baptized nonbelievers.”

“The greatest challenge I see is to help the faithful to rediscover the power, the greatness, the fundamental importance of their baptism,” he said. “I will pray that this Pope Leo XIV will … no longer take for granted that the baptized are believers and to focus attention on this reality of a ‘Christian secularism.’”

The religious priest from India said the population in his area of Rome is growing, in part due to the city’s construction of additional public housing. The Muslim population is also rising and they are trying to welcome even non-Catholic families to their parish festivals and parish community center — for many, the “only place [in the struggling neighborhood] where they can stay with security and freedom.”

Samy said he is looking for guidance and “a fatherly figure” from Pope Leo. “We also understand the difficulties the Church is facing now, but we hope our new pope will help us [and] will give us support to do something better for the Diocese of Rome,” he said.

Modugno, whose parish is much closer to the city center, said he also hopes Leo “can truly be the shepherd we are waiting for.”

All of the priests described Rome as unique, especially for its size and diversity, including among the priests, many of whom are foreign or from other parts of Italy. 

Caleffi, who is originally from the Italian city of Parma, said it’s obvious the priests of Rome “won’t all think the same way,” but what they would all like is “as direct a relationship with [the pope] as possible, even if this can be difficult.”

Vatican City, Jun 11, 2025 / 16:41 pm (CNA).

Opus Dei presented its proposed statutes to the Holy See on June 11 following the guidelines from the Vatican in the 2022 motu proprio as announced by the apostolate’s prelate, Monsignor Fernando Ocáriz.

“I would like to inform you about the work of adapting the statutes. We had planned to complete this study at the general congress, but, as you know, due to the Holy See being vacant, it was deemed appropriate not to do so,” Ocáriz explained in . “The congress participants gave their positive opinion so that, with the new [general] council and [central] advisory [board], we could conclude the revision of the statutes and submit them to the Holy See for approval, which we did today.”

“It has been a journey, accompanied by everyone’s prayers, which I ask you to intensify in this final stage,” he added in the letter, in which he urged everyone to entrust their work and apostolic labors to the Most Holy Trinity and to St. Josemaría Escrivá, noting that this June marks the 50th anniversary of the founder of Opus Dei’s death.

Now the Holy See will have to review and determine whether it will accept the statutes proposed by the prelature. The time frame for the decision is unknown.

On May 14, just six days after his election, the process of revising its statutes. This process had to be postponed following on April 21, two days before the convening of the general congress from which the revisions proposed for approval were to be issued.

According to the Opus Dei communications office in Rome, “the Holy Father, among other things, inquired about the current study of the prelature’s statutes.”

“Leo XIV listened with great interest to the explanations given to him,” the official statement noted.

The Vatican did not provide an account of the meeting’s content and limited itself to reporting it in the pope’s agenda, which is distributed daily to the Vatican-accredited press.

Since the summer of 2022, Opus Dei has been in the process of revising its statutes to adapt them to Pope Francis’ motu proprio . In essence, placed Opus Dei under the direction of the Dicastery for the Clergy rather than the Dicastery for Bishops, and ended the practice of elevating the prelate of Opus Dei to the rank of bishop.

The Argentine pontiff had also requested that Opus Dei revise its statutes to reflect this new structure, which was to be finalized during the general congress. This revision was to be presented as a proposal to the Holy See for approval, following its adoption by the assembly.

However, the general congress ultimately focused solely on the tasks of choosing a new general council and central advisory board, positions that are selected every eight years.

Vatican City, Jun 11, 2025 / 15:48 pm (CNA).

The (IOR, by its Italian acronym), popularly known as the Vatican Bank — a small financial institution with just over 100 employees founded by Pope Pius XII in 1942 — obtained a net profit of 32.8 million euros (about $37.7 million) in 2024, compared with 30.6 million euros (about $35.1 million) in 2023.

As indicated in the published Wednesday by the Holy See Press Office, the net profit of 32.8 million euros represents a 7% increase compared with 2023.

This result, according to the report, is due to growth in interest income (+5.8%), commission income (+13.2%), and brokerage income (+3.6%), along with other measures implemented to ensure strict cost control.

The report also included information on the profits redistributed to the pope and to other Holy See budget items.

As required by the IOR statutes, the report was subsequently submitted to the Commission of Cardinals, which authorized the distribution of a dividend of 13.8 million euros (about $15.8 million) to the Holy Father.

It was a gesture that — according to the Vatican — reaffirms “the institute’s commitment to its mission of supporting religious and charitable works.”

According to the results for last year, the total volume of client assets managed by the IOR — which includes deposits, current accounts, assets under management, and securities in custody — rose to 5.7 billion euros (about $6.5 billion), compared with 5.4 billion euros (about $6.2 billion) the previous year. 

Furthermore, the institute’s net assets increased to 731.9 million euros (about $840.5 million), representing an increase of 64.3 million euros (about $73.8 million) compared with 2023.

One of the most notable figures is the Tier 1 capital ratio, a key financial indicator that measures a bank’s financial strength and ability to absorb losses while continuing to operate. According to the data presented, it reached 69.43%, representing a 16.1% improvement compared with the previous year. This figure was due, according to the Vatican, “to a general decrease in risks and an increase in equity.”

The performance of the institute’s asset management lines was also positive: 100% of them achieved positive gross returns, and 79% outperformed their respective benchmarks. All financial services and investments were carried out in full compliance with the social doctrine of the Catholic Church, according to the report.

The IOR’s financial statement, in which account ownership is limited to Catholic institutions, ecclesiastical bodies, Vatican entities, and embassies and ambassadors accredited to the Holy See, was unanimously approved by the Superintendency Council on April 29 and audited by Mazars Italia S.p.A.

The Vatican attributed this positive performance to the net income achieved and the “numerous improvements” made. During 2024, the IOR strengthened its key functions by adding specialized personnel and making strategic investments in digital and technological infrastructure, with the aim of improving customer service.

According to the Vatican, the institute’s liquidity ratios and Tier 1 capital ratio place it among the “most solid financial institutions in the world” in terms of capitalization and liquidity.

The institution remains the only entity authorized to offer financial services in Vatican City State.

The accounts, prepared in accordance with International Accounting Standards and International Financial Reporting Standards, confirm another year of “sustained and solid growth,” according to the report.

Vatican City, Jun 11, 2025 / 13:57 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV on Wednesday received U.N. Secretary-General in an audience held in the study of the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican.

Guterres subsequently met with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, secretary of state of the Holy See, and Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, secretary for relations with states and international organizations.

Although the Vatican did not provide details about the private meeting with the pontiff, it indicated that during the conversation with the Secretariat of State the Holy See’s support for the United Nations’ commitment to world peace was expressed.

Some ongoing processes and upcoming summits organized by the United Nations were also discussed as well as the difficulties the organization faces in addressing current crises around the world.

During the course of the conversation, specific situations of conflict and instability were also discussed.

The United Nations was established in 1945 with the aim of fostering international peace and security. Currently 193 countries are members of the organization, which has its headquarters in New York.

Various initiatives promoted by the U.N. clash head-on with Christian values, such as the demand for the decriminalization of abortion under the euphemism of “,” its explicit support for gender ideology, and the promotion of the , which clashes in essential aspects with the doctrine of the Catholic Church.

Since 1964, the Vatican has held the position of permanent observer to the U.N., which means the Holy See is not a full member of the organization but rather an observer state.

The current permanent observer, Archbishop Gabriele Caccia, participates in its debates by contributing ideas but does not have the right to vote.

Guterres, 76, is the ninth secretary-general of the United Nations, a position he assumed on Jan. 1, 2017. He was born in Lisbon, Portugal, in 1949. In addition to being a politician and businessman, he is also an electrical engineer and professor.

Vatican City, Jun 11, 2025 / 11:32 am (CNA).

“Rome ’25-the Way of St. James ’27-Jerusalem ’33” is the name of an initiative led by young people who, through pilgrimages, evangelization, and healing, aim to “restore the soul of Europe.”

The initiative encourages young Christians from across the continent to open up a pathway to faith and hope for a new European generation in preparation for the Jubilee of Redemption, which will be celebrated in 2033.

“It’s not just about making the pilgrimage but about rediscovering God and our Christian identity, walking the pilgrim paths of Europe with a new, courageous, and joyful perspective,” the young people stated in a press release issued by the Spanish Bishops’ Conference, one of the promoters of the initiative.

In this way, young Christians in Europe “are raising their voices” to tell the world that another Europe is possible and to reconnect it “with the beauty, truth, and love of Christ,” especially in a time of distractions, uprootedness, and “hidden wounds.”

Fernando Moscardó, a 22-year-old medical student, has been the architect of this “revolution of the youthful spirit” on the old continent. Speaking with ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, he explained that the idea arose from seeing the pessimistic figures of an increasingly secularized Europe.

“Recent surveys tell us that more than 70% of young Europeans declare themselves nonreligious, an unprecedented figure. Furthermore, young people feel lonelier than ever, and we see that 42% of Europeans say they feel their lives lack meaning,” he noted.

“Fer,” as his friends know him, was clear that the answer to healing these wounds must be a spiritual one. He also pointed out that Bishop Mikel Garciandía, head of the Spanish bishops’ conference’s committee on pilgrimages and also in charge of the project, refers to this “lack of meaning” as “a spiritual orphanhood.”

They consequently decided to embark on this journey of renewal in preparation for the Jubilee of Redemption in 2033, the 2,000th anniversary of Christ’s redemption.

“We couldn’t wait until 2033 to get started, so we outlined a project consisting of three stages: The first is in Rome, with this year’s Jubilee of Hope, with which we kick off the event.” It will then take place in Santiago de Compostela (the Way of St. James pilgrimage route) in 2027 and, finally, in Jerusalem in 2033.

During this month of June, local pilgrimages are taking place throughout Europe, culminating on Aug. 1 with the proclamation of a manifesto of the Young Christians of Europe in St. Mary’s Basilica in Trastevere, Rome.

“On that day, together we will tell the world what we believe, what we dream, and what we are ready to live out. Every step we take is for those who no longer believe they have hope. This revolution of the spirit aims to make the invisible visible and give a voice to those who unknowingly seek God,” he said.

So that this declaration, drawn up on the basis of pilgrimages, truly serves as the voice of a generation, it will be published digitally during the month of July so that young people around the world can read and sign it.

“We want this to be the most widely supported youth declaration in the history of Europe, and only then will the words we speak on Aug. 1 have the weight of a multitude that believes, dreams, and journeys together.”

Furthermore, the project is also organized around a large network of Christian pilgrimage routes, including the historic Michaelmas Axis, which links shrines of St. Michael the Archangel from Ireland to Jerusalem.

This “spiritual sword” symbolizes a Europe that is once again turning heavenward. Monasteries, cathedrals, and parishes will become points of light, welcoming those who go through life in search of meaning.

Moscardó also explained that the initiative is based on three pillars: pilgrimage, healing, and evangelization. “These are the three pillars we are taking as turning points to bring about change in this lost Europe,” he emphasized.

The young man reiterated that this is “a project of young people and for young people” and said that it has had “a very beautiful start,” with work teams throughout Europe supported by the bishops’ conferences.

“We thought that people today were going on pilgrimage for tourism, for social interaction, and we were forgetting that the most important thing when going on pilgrimage is to be aware that we do not walk alone, that we walk with Christ, and that we can pave the way for that personal relationship with him,” he explained.

He also noted that more than 600 people participated in the first pilgrimage, which was to Mont Saint-Michel in France. “We’re having a very beautiful and quite large response.”

On June 11, the project’s promoters are scheduled to be received by Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican. He also explained that they are already working on a website to provide all the necessary information about the activities as well as on their social media channels, which will be called J2R2033 (Journey to Redemption 2033).

Vatican City, Jun 11, 2025 / 09:12 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV has appointed Bishop Joseph Lin Yuntuan as auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Fuzhou in China, the Holy See announced on Wednesday.

The Vatican credited the Sino-Vatican deal, signed in September 2019 and in October 2024, for Lin Yuntuan’s June 5 appointment.

The Vatican “the recognition of the civil effects and the taking of possession of the office of Monsignor Joseph Lin Yuntuan.” The announcement said the Holy Father made the appointment “in the framework of the dialogue regarding the application of the provisional agreement between the Holy See and the People’s Republic of China.”

Lin Yuntuan, 73, was ordained a priest for the Fuzhou Archdiocese, located in China’s Fujian Province, in 1984 after completing four years of studies in the local seminary. He was clandestinely consecrated a bishop in 2017. 

From 1984 to 1994 and 1996 to 2002, Lin Yuntuan was appointed parish priest for several parishes spread across the Fuzhou Archdiocese.

Other roles he held include a teaching role at the Fuzhou seminary in 1985, two terms as deputy director of the diocesan economic commission from 1994 to 1996 and 2000 to 2003, and as diocesan administrator from 2003 and 2007.

Prior to his clandestine consecration as bishop in 2017, Lin Yuntuan served as apostolic administrator of Fuzhou from 2013 to 2016.

Archbishop Joseph Cai Bing-rui currently leads the metropolitan Archdiocese of Fuzhou, which was erected in 1946. 

Globally, 84 new bishops have been elected in 2025. To date, Pope Leo XIV has appointed 15 new bishops in Europe, Asia, Africa, South America, and the U.S. 

Vatican City, Jun 11, 2025 / 05:50 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV reflected on Christian hope — one of the three theological virtues, along with faith and charity — during his general audience on Wednesday. 

“There is no cry that God does not hear, even when we are unaware that we are addressing him,” the pope said, illustrating this idea with the story of Bartimaeus, described in the Gospel of Mark as a blind beggar who encountered Jesus as he was leaving Jericho. 

Pope Leo explained that this story helps us understand that “we must never abandon hope, even when we feel lost.” 

The Holy Father today spoke on the healings performed by Jesus and invited Catholics to bring before the heart of Christ their “most wounded or fragile parts” or those areas of life where they “feel paralyzed or stuck.” 

“Let us ask the Lord with trust to hear our cry and heal us!” the pope said. 

Pope Leo focused on the attitude of Jesus, who does not immediately approach Bartimaeus but instead asks him what he wants. “It is not obvious that we truly want to be healed of our illnesses — sometimes we prefer to remain as we are so as not to take on new responsibilities,” he said. 

“It may seem strange that, faced with a blind man, Jesus does not immediately approach him. But if we think about it, this is how he helps reactivate Bartimaeus’ life: He prompts him to rise and entrusts him with the ability to walk,” the pope added. 

Indeed, the pope said that Bartimaeus does not only wish to see again — he also “wants to regain his dignity.” 

“To look upward, one must lift one’s head. Sometimes people feel stuck because life has humiliated them, and they simply want to regain their worth,” the Holy Father said. 

For this reason, he called on the faithful to do everything they can to obtain what they seek, “even when others scold you, humiliate you, or tell you to give up.”

“If you truly desire it, keep crying out!” he said. 

The pope stressed that what saves Bartimaeus is faith. “Jesus heals us so that we may be free,” he said. 

Leo XIV also reflected on Bartimaeus’ gesture of casting off his cloak in order to stand up.

“For a beggar, the cloak is everything: It is security, it is home, it is the protection that shields him. In fact, the law protected a beggar’s cloak and required that it be returned by evening if it had been taken as a pledge,” he explained.

The pope compared the beggar’s cloak to the illusion of security that people often cling to.

“Often what holds us back are precisely these apparent securities — the things we have wrapped around ourselves for protection, which in reality prevent us from moving forward,” he said.

Pope Leo noted that, in order to go to Jesus and be healed, Bartimaeus “must expose himself to him in all his vulnerability” — a fundamental step on any path to healing.

Finally, the pope called on the faithful to trustingly bring to Jesus “our illnesses, as well as those of our loved ones,” and “the pain of those who feel lost and without a way out.”

“Let us cry out for them as well, and let us be certain that the Lord will hear us and will stop for us,” he said.

Vatican City, Jun 10, 2025 / 14:11 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV received papal representatives at the Vatican on Tuesday, reminding them that the Church “will always defend the sacrosanct right to believe in God” and that this life “is not at the mercy of the powers of this world.”

In the June 10 delivered in the Clementine Hall of the Vatican Apostolic Palace, he thanked the papal nuncios and international organizations around the world for their work.

The pontiff noted that “there is no country in the world” with a diplomatic corps as universal and united as that of the Holy See: “We are united in Christ and we are united in the Church.”

“I say this thinking certainly of the dedication and organization, but, even more so, of the motivations that guide you, the pastoral style that should characterize you, the spirit of faith that inspires us,” he added.

He particularly thanked them for being able to rely on the documentation, reflections, and summaries prepared by the diplomats when faced with a situation that concerns the Church in a particular country. “This is for me a cause for great appreciation and gratitude,” he reiterated.

Pope Leo XIV then shared with those present the account from the Acts of the Apostles (3:1-10) of the healing of the paralytic, a scene that, in his opinion, “describes the ministry of Peter well.”

For the pontiff, the man who begs for alms at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple represents “the image of a humanity that has lost hope and is resigned.”

“Even today, the Church often encounters men and women who no longer have any joy, whom society has sidelined, or whom life has in a certain sense forced into begging for their existence,” he lamented.

After looking into his eyes, the pope recounted, Peter said to the paralytic: “I have neither silver nor gold, but what I do have I give you in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazorean, [rise and] walk.”

After quoting this passage, Pope Leo noted that “to look into one’s eyes means to build a relationship. The ministry of Peter is to create relationships, bridges: and a representative of the pope, first and foremost, serves this invitation to look into the eyes.”

“Always be the eyes of Peter! Be men capable of building relationships where it is hardest to do,” the pope exhorted them, asking them to do so with humility and realism.

The Holy Father also placed his trust in the diplomatic corps of the Holy See so that “everyone may know that the Church is always ready for everything out of love, that she is always on the side of the last, the poor, and that she will always defend the sacrosanct right to believe in God, to believe that this life is not at the mercy of the powers of this world but rather is traversed by a mysterious meaning.”

He also encouraged them to “always have a blessing gaze, because the ministry of Peter is to bless, that is, always to know how to see the good, even that which is hidden.”

“Feel that you are missionaries, sent by the pope to be tools of communion, unity, serving the dignity of the human person, promoting sincere and constructive relations everywhere with the authorities with whom you are required to cooperate,” he urged.

In conclusion, he reiterated that their work “always be enlightened by the sound decision for holiness.”

After the speech, the papal representatives received a ring bearing the inscription “sub umbra Petri” (“under the shadow of Peter,” cf. Acts 5:15) from the pope as a sign of communion.

Vatican City, Jun 9, 2025 / 15:31 pm (CNA).

How to communicate with hope in today’s Europe? That is the question a group of Church communicators and journalists tackled during a June 3–5 meeting in Prague organized by the Council of Bishops’ Conferences of Europe.

Within the framework of the Jubilee of Hope, experts from 18 European Union countries gathered to reflect on communication that “restores meaning” to people’s lives; that is, communication that speaks of God.

Daniel Arasa, consultor to the Dicastery for Communication and dean of the faculty of institutional social communication at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome, opened the meeting with a presentation titled “The Service of Ecclesial Communicators to the Church in the Current Context.”

In a conversation with ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, Arasa addressed one of the main problems facing institutional communicators: the lack of trust in institutions. In light of this, he emphasized the importance of renewal focused on three lines of action.

First, he called for “cultural reforestation,” a metaphor that refers to the replanting of core values ​​in society “that give meaning and unity to coexistence.”

He specified that the loss of these values ​​has not only been due to religious ignorance or de-Christianization but also the process that began in the 1960s “with gender theories, radical feminism, the exacerbation of individualism, and relativism.”

Arasa explained that these phenomena have emptied concepts such as man, woman, family, and love of anthropological content. Such concepts “until recently were shared worldwide and allowed for dialogue and social coexistence. Now they have been emptied of content,” he pointed out.

When these “trees” are removed, the communications expert added, “the mountain collapses.” Therefore, he emphasized the responsibility of ecclesial communicators to “culturally reforest society.”

In his presentation, Arasa also emphasized the need to foster creativity and empathy in communication.

Finally, he cited four qualities that a religious communicator must possess: “a desire for ongoing formation, service, unity with the Holy Father, good humor, and joy.”

In the face of wars and secularization in Europe, he clarified that giving hope is not only about communicating good news but also “being able to talk about negative things in a context of faith; that is, of hope.”

He also emphasized that people “want to hear stories,” so institutions are best presented through stories.

Italian Alessandro Gisotti, deputy director of the editorial department of the Dicastery for Communication and former Vatican spokesperson during the pontificate of Pope Francis, reflected on the topic of “Communication from Pope Francis to Pope Leo.” He said that to understand Pope Leo, “you have to know St. Augustine.”

The final session addressed the topic “Journalists and Vatican Communication,” with talks by Javier Martínez Brocal, Vatican expert and correspondent for the Spanish newspaper ABC, and Josef Pazderka, editor-in-chief of Český rozhlas Plus, a Czech radio station.

Brocal emphasized that those who have lost the sense of meaning in life or who are despairing find that answer in the Church, even if they are not directly seeking it.

Arasa echoed Martínez-Brocal’s words, emphasizing that “the Church is one of the few, if not the only, institution that can give meaning to many of these questions.” In this regard, he emphasized that the same people who tend toward “Orientalism, mindfulness, etc., were very attentive to what was happening during the conclave.”

“The very beauty of the rites, the prayers, the sense of joy that permeated the people, in the squares… these are things that show there is a spiritual dimension behind it; it is what truly fills people with meaning,” he added.

In this context, he recalled that Leo XIV seeks to “recover the primacy of Christ,” a theme on which Francis also insisted greatly. “People need answers, and only God is the answer, and we must not be afraid to present it in a very positive, non-imposing way. It’s about giving a message of joy,” Arasa indicated.

Finally, he insisted on the importance of consistency: “We cannot speak of Christ and present Christ without giving testimony with our lives. Everything we say must have that evangelizing spirit, something the pope constantly emphasizes.”

The meeting also included various cultural activities, including a Mass in the St. Wenceslas Chapel of Prague Cathedral, presided over by Bishop Josef Nuzík, president of the Czech Bishops’ Conference.

Vatican City, Jun 9, 2025 / 11:08 am (CNA).

The Vatican on Monday removed artwork by former Jesuit Father Marko Ivan Rupnik from its official websites.

Digital images of the Slovenian priest’s sacred art, which were frequently used by Vatican News to illustrate articles of the Church’s liturgical feast days, are no longer found on the digital news service.

Catholic writer Amy Welborn to show screenshots of Vatican News’ “Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church” article before and after Rupnik’s accompanying artwork was removed from the website on June 9.

Rupnik, who was expelled by the Society of Jesus in June 2023 for his “stubborn refusal to observe the vow of obedience,” is accused by about two dozen women, mostly former nuns, of spiritual, psychological, and sexual abuse they allege has occurred over the past three decades.

The recent changes to the Vatican News and the Dicastery for Communication websites came soon after Pope Leo XIV met with members of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors on June 5.

Within the first week of his pontificate, Pope Leo XIV met with Cardinal Seán O’Malley, OFM, archbishop emeritus of Boston and president of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, on May 14.

Several Church leaders and Catholic groups around the world have increasingly called for the removal of sacred art created by the former Jesuit.

On March 31, the Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes in France found at the entrances to the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary.

Vatican City, Jun 9, 2025 / 10:08 am (CNA).

Sister Maria Gloria Riva of the Nuns of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament spoke on the importance of working with eternity in mind during a talk delivered Monday morning at the Vatican, a highly unusual case of a layperson publicly addressing the pontiff on spiritual matters.

All non-clerics, including all women religious and men religious who are not in holy orders, are considered laypeople.

The 66-year-old nun, part of a cloistered, contemplative monastery in the small state of San Marino in Italy, was the invited speaker for the Jubilee of the Holy See, part of the Catholic Church’s wider 2025 Jubilee Year of Hope.

“Eternity is before us. If we work for short-term and mediocre horizons, we work in vain,” Riva said in her June 9 meditation to Pope Leo XIV, cardinals, bishops, and other employees of the Vatican and Roman Curia. 

The nun’s participation was planned by the Dicastery for Evangelization with Pope Francis before his death. Francis had expanded women’s leadership roles in the Church, including opening the ministries of lector and acolyte to women.

Riva’s talk was followed by a procession through the Holy Door, led by Pope Leo, who carried the jubilee cross like an ordinary pilgrim from the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall to St. Peter’s Basilica, where he then celebrated Mass for the feast of Mary, Mother of the Church.

In his homily, Leo emphasized the necessity of bearing one’s cross in order to be fruitful.

“All the fruitfulness of the Church and of the Holy See depends on the cross of Christ. Otherwise, it is only appearance, if not worse,” the pontiff said.

“The Holy See is holy as the Church is holy, in her original core, in the very fabric of her being,” he continued. “The Apostolic See thus preserves the holiness of its roots while being preserved by them. But it is no less true that it also lives in the holiness of each of its members. Therefore, the best way to serve the Holy See is to strive for holiness, each according to his or her particular state of life and the work entrusted to him or her.”

Reflecting on the liturgical feast day of Mary, Mother of the Church, the pope connected the fruitfulness of the Church and the fruitfulness of Mary, which, he said, “is realized in the lives of her members to the extent that they relive, ‘in miniature,’ what the Mother lived, namely, they love according to the love of Jesus.”

The fruitfulness of the Church is also linked to the grace of the pierced heart of Jesus and the sacraments, he added.

According to Leo, Mary, as the living memory of Jesus, also ensures the unity of the disciples’ prayer in the upper room at Pentecost.

In the account of Pentecost in the Acts of the Apostles, “the apostles are listed by name and, as always, Peter is the first,” the pope pointed out. “But he himself, in truth, is the first to be supported by Mary in his ministry.”

“In the same way, Mother Church supports the ministry of Peter’s successors with the Marian charism. The Holy See experiences in a very special way the coexistence of the two poles; the Marian and the Petrine. It is precisely the Marian pole, with its motherhood, gift of Christ and of the Spirit, that ensures the fruitfulness and holiness of the Petrine pole,” he said.

Riva, an author and prolific spiritual writer, also spoke about the direction of one’s work and life in her reflection. “We need to work for the great horizon of life that does not die: to live by asking ourselves at every moment whether what we are doing connects us firmly to that truth which is charity and eternity; this is hope,” she underlined.

“We, dear brothers and sisters, know where we must run: The race of John and Peter towards the tomb of Christ is the only race that the Church and the world can run without fear. It is the race of those who know that hope lies in true life, eternal life.”

The meaning of a jubilee, she continued, is to help us think about the last things, the brevity of existence, and the meaning of our lives.

The nun, who founded her monastic community, which educates Catholics about Eucharistic adoration and recalled an oft-repeated line from the Russian author Dostoevsky that “beauty will save the world.”

This quote is incorrect, she said, because Prince Myshkin, in the novel “The Idiot,” actually asks: “What beauty will save the world?”

“The prince,” Riva explained, “is confronted with a terrible image,” a painting by Hans Holbein, The painting, also referred to as “Dead Christ,” “is a life-size Christ with sunken eyes and limbs already showing signs of necrosis,” she said.

“So the question is serious. What beauty will save the world? Will the beauty of the cross save the world? The beauty of defeat? The beauty of humiliation? Yes, the cross can still save us,” the nun emphasized. “In 2025, in postmodern man, the great salvation of the cross still exists. The cross will save us.”

Vatican City, Jun 9, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

A total of 24 fortunate young people from around the world are participating this year in the Vatican Observatory’s summer camp, an exceptional opportunity to see “that science and faith work together.”

The camp is led by the observatory’s director, Jesuit Brother Guy Consolmagno, who during these summer months is teaching the cohort of future astronomers.

“We hope that simply living and working alongside Jesuit astronomers will be the strongest evidence that science and faith work together, and even more so, that this is a very natural collaboration,” Consolmagno told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner.

The veteran Vatican astronomer, born in Detroit, recalled that Pope John Paul II once described faith and reason “as the two wings that lift us toward the truth.”

“I hear in Pope Leo’s comments an echo of that same intuition,” the Jesuit affirmed, referring to the pontiff’s words at a recent international in which he called for a science that serves the truth and that is “increasingly humane and respectful of the integrity of the human person.”

According to the director of the observatory, which is located in Castel Gandolfo, Italy, the important thing is to remember “that truth itself is the goal” and that understanding “our faith and our science is never complete, never perfect, but always worth pursuing.”

As Consolmagno sees it, astronomers have a responsibility to pass on their knowledge to the next generation.

In this context, he acknowledged that “young, fresh minds are essential to making new discoveries and creating a deeper understanding of what we discover.”

The Jesuit brother highlighted the “special” nature of the camp, as many of the students “come from the less developed world, which means we can spread the joy of discovery to places that too often don’t have the opportunity to experience it.”

He also noted that the best part of the summer school for the young people “is the opportunity to meet both their peers from around the world and to have access to the experts who teach the classes.”

“Astronomy is a small field, and meeting other astronomers personally and professionally enriches both the students and the work,” he added.

Consolmagno indicated that this year’s 24 students were chosen from among 175 applicants, so “the decisions were not easy.”

“Our only limit is that there can be no more than two students per nation. Beyond that, we choose the students who showed the greatest promise of being able to benefit from a school like this... both for their academic ability and for their enthusiasm for living in this historic setting,” he indicated.

For many of the students, the connections they make at the Vatican Observatory allow them to enter top-tier doctoral programs around the world “and then bring this high level of scientific excellence back to their home countries.”

“We estimate that more than 80% of students continue on to professional astronomy,” he noted, adding that those who pursue other paths still benefit greatly from the experience.

The theme of this year’s summer school — the 19th since its first edition in 1986 — is “Exploring the Universe with the James Webb Space Telescope: The First Three Years.”

The James Webb Space Telescope was launched on Christmas Day 2021. Since it began transmitting data the following July, Consolmagno said, it “has revolutionized our understanding of the cosmos.”

Consolmagno explained that this telescope allows students to see firsthand what science is really saying and not just “the results that have been reported in the press.”

“This allows them to appreciate how important — and difficult — it can be to try to explain to the general public what we have learned,” he emphasized.

For the Vatican astronomer, this is “an ideal time to review what the Webb telescope has discovered so far and to teach what we have learned about how best to take advantage of its capabilities.”

He further pointed out that “the combination of theory and practice” is something the observatory has promoted since these courses began almost four decades ago.

Vatican City, Jun 8, 2025 / 13:45 pm (CNA).

Traveling more than 10,000 miles to take part in this weekend’s Jubilee of Ecclesial Movements, Associations, and New Communities, Sister Therese Mills, MGL, spoke to CNA of her great joy as she joined tens of thousands of other pilgrims in Rome.

A leader of the Missionaries of God’s Love Sisters, a charismatic Catholic group founded in Australia in 1987, Mills said her pilgrimage to Rome during the 2025 Jubilee Year of Hope has been a time of refreshment and renewal.

She described the “amazing” experience of walking through the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica on Saturday, the first day of the special jubilee dedicated to new Catholic movements and associations.  

Mills recalled “just opening my hands and just praying that the Lord would refresh and renew my heart and refresh and renew my faith.”

“The thing that blew me away — and what I loved the most — was we were all on this journey together but everyone was speaking and praying in different languages,” she shared with CNA on Pentecost Sunday.

Mills called her visit to the Blessed Sacrament chapel inside the papal basilica a “God moment” that she will not forget.

“I just sat before Jesus and bawled my eyes out to be honest,” she said with a laugh. “I was very overwhelmed with his love … the gift of being with him in this place, and with the universal Church.”

The approximately 70,000 pilgrims participating in the weekend jubilee had the opportunity to explore different churches in Rome and attend music and entertainment events organized by various ecclesial groups.

A few of the hundreds of new Catholic associations taking part in the June jubilee included the Neocatechumenal Way, Catholic Action, Communion and Liberation, the Catholic Shalom Community, the Community of Sant’Egidio, the Focolare Movement, and CHARIS International.

During his homily at the Vigil Mass, Pope Leo described the new and diverse Church communities gathered around him as “the fruits of the Second Vatican Council” who are “grounded in the one Lord Jesus Christ” entrusted with “a single mission.”

Mills attended both Pope Leo’s Pentecost Masses — the Vigil on Saturday night and one on Sunday morning. 

“I really love being part of a universal Church, being united as one, and coming together to pray for the Spirit,” Mills said.

In the days leading up to the official jubilee festivities, Mills undertook a pilgrimage to holy sites in Rome linked to patron saints of her Australian-based community, including St. Francis of Assisi, St. Ignatius of Loyola, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, and St. Catherine of Siena.

The first Missionaries of God’s Love Sisters household was formed in the Archdiocese of Canberra-Goulburn in 1988. Since then, the religious sisters have lived and ministered in the Australian cities of Adelaide, Darwin, Melbourne, and Sydney, and led outreach missions around the country and in other Asia-Pacific nations, including Fiji and Papua New Guinea.

CNA Newsroom, Jun 8, 2025 / 12:05 pm (CNA).

Follow our live coverage of the pontificate of Pope Leo XIV, first U.S.-born pope in history.

Vatican City, Jun 8, 2025 / 08:42 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV celebrated Mass for the solemnity of Pentecost in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday with international pilgrims belonging to new Church movements, associations, and communities celebrating this year’s Jubilee Year of Hope in Rome.

Emphasizing the significance of the Holy Spirit in the life of a Christian, the Holy Father noted that it is the third person of the Blessed Trinity who anoints, heals, and strengthens followers of Jesus to “open borders” in hearts, in relationships with others, and between nations.

“Let us invoke the Spirit of love and peace, that he may open borders, break down walls, dispel hatred, and help us to live as children of our one Father who is in heaven,” on a hot Sunday morning.

“Brothers and sisters, Pentecost renews the Church and the world!” he said. “May the strong wind of the Spirit come upon us and within us, open the borders of our hearts, grant us the grace of encounter with God, enlarge the horizons of our love and sustain our efforts to build a world in which peace reigns.”

Approximately 70,000 people from more than 100 countries registered to take part in this year’s special Jubilee of Ecclesial Movements, Associations, and New Communities taking place over the June 7–8 weekend in Rome.

Celebrating Sunday Mass alongside cardinals, bishops, and other priests wearing red vestments to represent the fire of the Holy Spirit who descended upon the apostles on the day of Pentecost, the Holy Father invited those gathered in St. Peter’s Square and along Via della Conciliazione to also reflect on the words of his papal predecessors. 

“The Spirit opens borders... The Church must always become anew what she already is,” the pope said, quoting Benedict XVI. “She must open the borders between peoples and break down the barriers between class and race.” 

During his homily, Pope Leo reiterated Pope Francis’ pleas for the end of ongoing violence, including femicide, creating “much discord” and “such great division” in the world.

“The Spirit breaks down barriers and tears down the walls of indifference and hatred because he ‘teaches us all things’ and ‘reminds us of Jesus’ words,” he said, reflecting on the Gospel of St. John. 

“Where there is love, there is no room for prejudice, for ‘security’ zones separating us from our neighbors, for the exclusionary mindset that, tragically, we now see emerging also in political nationalisms,” he added.

The pope also prayed to God for his gift of unity and fraternity in the world.

Before concluding the celebration of the Mass with the Regina Coeli prayer in Latin, the Holy Father thanked his brother cardinals, bishops, and all representatives of ecclesial associations, movements, and new communities in Rome for their presence and witness of faith.

“Dear sisters and brothers, with the strength of the Holy Spirit, set out renewed from this jubilee of yours. Go and bring to everyone the hope of the Lord Jesus!” he said. “May the Spirit of the risen Christ open paths of reconciliation wherever there is war; may he enlighten governments and give them the courage to make gestures of de-escalation and dialogue.”

CNA Staff, Jun 8, 2025 / 04:00 am (CNA).

This weekend, the Church celebrates Pentecost, one of the most important feast days of the year, which concludes the Easter season and celebrates the birth of the Church. 

Here’s what you need to know about the feast day.

Pentecost always occurs 50 days after the resurrection of Jesus and 10 days after his ascension into heaven. Because Easter is a moveable feast without a fixed date and Pentecost depends on the timing of Easter, Pentecost can fall anywhere between May 10 and June 13.

The timing of these feasts is also where Catholics get the concept of the novena — nine days of prayer — because in Acts 1, Mary and the apostles prayed together “continuously” for nine days after the Ascension leading up to Pentecost. Traditionally, in the days before Pentecost.

The name of the day itself is derived from the Greek word “pentecoste,” meaning “50th.”

There is a parallel Jewish holiday, Shavu’ot, which falls 50 days after Passover. Shavu’ot is sometimes called the “Feast of Weeks,” referring to the seven weeks since Passover.

Originally a harvest feast, Shavu’ot now commemorates the sealing of the Old Covenant on Mount Sinai, when the Lord revealed the Torah to Moses. Every year, the Jewish people renew their acceptance of the gift of the Torah on this day.

In the Christian tradition, Pentecost is the celebration of the person of the Holy Spirit coming upon the apostles, Mary, and the first followers of Jesus, who were gathered together in the upper room.

A “strong, driving” wind filled the room where they were gathered, and “tongues as of fire” came to rest on each one of them (Acts 2:13). They were suddenly able to speak in different languages and be understood. It was such a strange phenomenon that some people thought the Christians were drunk — but Peter pointed out that it was only “9 in the morning” and said the phenomenon was caused by the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit also gave the apostles the other gifts necessary to fulfill the great commission — to go out and preach the Gospel to all nations. This fulfilled the New Testament promise from Christ that the apostles would be “clothed with power” before they would be sent out to spread the Gospel (Luke 24:46-49).

It was right after Pentecost that Peter, inspired by the Holy Spirit, preached his first homily to Jews and other nonbelievers in which he opened the Scriptures of the Old Testament, showing how the prophet Joel prophesied events and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

He also told the people that the Jesus they crucified is the Lord and was raised from the dead, which “cut them to the heart.” When they asked what they should do, Peter exhorted them to repent of their sins and to be baptized. According to the account in Acts, about 3,000 people were baptized following Peter’s sermon.

For this reason, Pentecost is considered the birthday of the Church — Peter, the first pope, preaches for the first time and converts thousands of new believers. The apostles and believers, for the first time, were united by a common language and a common zeal and purpose to go and preach the Gospel.

Typically, priests will wear red vestments on Pentecost, symbolic of the burning fire of God’s love and the tongues of fire that descended on the apostles.

However, in some parts of the world, Pentecost is also referred to as “Whitsunday,” or White Sunday, referring to the white vestments that are typically worn in Britain and Ireland. The white is symbolic of the dove of the Holy Spirit and typical of the vestments that catechumens desiring baptism wear on that day.

An Italian Pentecost tradition is to scatter rose leaves from the ceiling of the churches to recall the miracle of the fiery tongues, and so, in some places in Italy, Pentecost is sometimes called “Pascha Rosatum” (“Easter roses”). One of the most famous locations for the rose petal dropping is the Pantheon.

In France, it is tradition to blow trumpets during Mass to recall the sound of the driving wind of the Holy Spirit.

In Asia, it is typical to have an extra service, called genuflexion, during which long poems and prayers are recited.

In Russia, Mass-goers often carry flowers or green branches during Pentecost services.

CNA Staff, Jun 7, 2025 / 16:00 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV on Saturday urged Catholics to embrace the Holy Spirit as a source of freedom and grace, addressing a crowd of tens of thousands during his first Pentecost as pope and calling on the faithful to adopt “the way of the Beatitudes” to spread the Gospel message.

The pontiff addressed a massive crowd, estimated by the Vatican at around 70,000, in St. Peter’s Square on June 7 during a prayer vigil there as part of the festivities for the Jubilee of Ecclesial Movements, Associations, and New Communities.

He told the faithful that “tonight, we sense the fragrance of the chrism with which our foreheads have been anointed.”

“Dear brothers and sisters, baptism and confirmation united us to Jesus’ mission of making all things new, to the kingdom of God,” the pope said. “Just as love enables us to sense the presence of a loved one, so tonight we sense in one another the fragrance of Christ.”

“This is a mystery; it amazes us and it leads us to reflect,” he said.

The pontiff said the concept of synodality “demands that we each recognize our own poverty and our riches, that we feel part of a greater whole, apart from which everything withers, even the most original and unique of charisms.”

“All creation exists solely in the form of coexistence, sometimes dangerous, yet always interconnected,” the pope said, citing the late Pope Francis’ encyclical . “And what we call ‘history’ only takes place as coexistence, living together, however contentiously, but always together.”

Leo noted that “where there is the Spirit, there is movement, a journey to be made.” The Holy Spirit, he said, “teaches us to walk together in unity.”

“We are a people on the move. This does not set us apart but unites us to humanity like the yeast in a mass of dough, which causes it to rise,” he said.

Evangelization, the pope said, is “not our attempt to conquer the world”; it is rather “the infinite grace that radiates from lives transformed by the kingdom of God.”

“It is the way of the Beatitudes, a path that we tread together, between the ‘already’ and the ‘not yet,’ hungering and thirsting for justice, poor in spirit, merciful, meek, pure of heart, men and women of peace,” he said.

To walk this path, the pope said, requires “no need of powerful patrons,” or compromises, or “emotional strategies.”

“Evangelization is always God’s work. If at times it takes place through us, it is thanks to the bonds that it makes possible,” he said.

He urged the faithful to be “deeply attached” to their own parishes and Church communities so that the entire Catholic Church can “work together harmoniously as one.”

“The challenges facing humanity will be less frightening, the future will be less dark and discernment will be less complicated, if together we obey the Holy Spirit!” he said.

CNA Staff, Jun 7, 2025 / 11:45 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV on Saturday said the Catholic Church is open to establishing a common date of Easter among all Christian churches, echoing one of the aims of the Council of Nicaea that met 1,700 years ago.

The pope spoke to participants of the symposium “Nicaea and the Church of the Third Millennium: Towards Catholic-Orthodox Unity,” which took place this week at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome.

The Holy Father called the 325 Council of Nicaea “foundational for the common journey that Catholics and Orthodox have undertaken together since the Second Vatican Council.”

This week’s symposium focused on the themes of faith, synodality, and “the date of Easter,” Leo said. The lattermost issue was “one of the objectives” of the ancient council.

“Sadly, differences in their calendars no longer allow Christians to celebrate together the most important feast of the liturgical year, causing pastoral problems within communities, dividing families, and weakening the credibility of our witness to the Gospel,” the pope said.

“Several concrete solutions have been proposed that, while respecting the principle of Nicaea, would allow Christians to celebrate together the ‘feast of feasts,’” the Holy Father said.

“In this year, when all Christians have celebrated Easter on the same day, I would reaffirm the openness of the Catholic Church to the pursuit of an ecumenical solution favoring a common celebration of the Lord’s resurrection,” the pope said.

On April 20, Easter Easter will fall again for both the East and the West on April 16, 2028, April 13, 2031, and April 9, 2034.

Leo on Saturday said that Christian unity, when it is ultimately achieved, “will not be primarily the fruit of our own efforts, nor will it be realized through any preconceived model or blueprint.”

“Rather, unity will be a gift received ‘as Christ wills and by the means that he wills,’” he said.

CNA Staff, Jun 7, 2025 / 10:30 am (CNA).

Evangelical pastor Rick Warren this week said the upcoming 2,000th anniversary of the death and resurrection of Jesus highlights the Lord’s “unanswered prayer” of unity in the Christian world, a unity he said will help bring the message of salvation to the world.

Warren, the founder of the Baptist Saddleback Church in California, spoke to EWTN Vatican Bureau Chief Andreas Thonhauser in Rome on attending a gathering of Global 2033, a Catholic evangelization initiative working to spread the Gospel message ahead of the 2,000-year observance of Christ rising from the dead.

Asked by Thonhauser why he was speaking at a Catholic event, the Protestant minister claimed that “no single denomination can complete the Great Commission on their own.”

“There are 2.5 billion people in the world who claim to believe in Jesus Christ,” Warren said. Of those, “1.3 billion are Catholic. About half of the Christian Church is Catholic.”

Dismissing potential criticisms that his intent is to convert Catholics to Protestantism, Warren pointed to Christ’s prayers in John 17, in which he prayed to God: “Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.”

That plea “is still the unanswered prayer of Jesus,” Warren said.

“We’re never going to have cultural unity. We’re never going to have structural unity,” Warren pointed out.

“We’re never going to have unity in doctrine,” he further claimed. “But we can all agree on one thing. Every Christian understands we’re called to go [and evangelize].”

On praying alongside Catholics in Rome, Warren said: “I pray with anybody who believes Jesus Christ is the Lord of my life. These are brothers and sisters in Christ.”

Looking forward to 2033, Warren said: “What the world needs now is hope.”

The Baptist pastor further shared that EWTN has been a “great ministry in [his] life.” He pointed to the 2013 death of his son, who took his own life that year after struggling with mental illness.

“It was the worst day of my life,” Warren said. “One of the things that helped me through was on EWTN, they were praying the Chaplet of Divine Mercy. And the Chaplet of Divine Mercy ministered to me and to my wife.”

“It was a healing balm in my heart,” he said.

Vatican City, Jun 6, 2025 / 14:45 pm (CNA).

Two prisoners currently serving sentences in Rome’s Rebibbia prison obtained special permission to participate in Pope Leo XIV’s general audience this past Wednesday.

“We received an official invitation from the Vatican to participate in the audience, and the inmates asked the magistrate for special permission, which was granted,” Father Marco Fibbi, the prison’s chaplain, told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. Fibbi accompanied them to St. Peter’s Square with the prison’s director, Teresa Mascolo.

“It was a great gift for the inmates to be able to exchange a few words with the pope,” the Italian priest said.

“We were all very moved because it was Pope Leo XIV’s third general audience. We had the privilege of being among the first to meet him in person. We were impressed by his accessibility, attention, and closeness with which he listened to what the inmates had to say,” Fibbi commented.

The words the pope spoke during the catechesis seemed especially fitting for those who are imprisoned: “He said that we can all be called by the Lord at some point in life; even in the worst moments when we feel most inadequate, the Lord always comes to meet us.”

The inmates at Rebibbia have committed crimes — some very serious — but they have the right to start over, Fibbi said. “All prisons are places of separation, of expiation of punishment, and therefore of much suffering and pain. But very often I have had experiences that show that all is never lost and that one can be reborn,” said Fibbi, who has been doing prison ministry at the facility for the last six years.

He added: “We are called, as prison chaplains, to nurture this hope, fostering the deep motivation to return to society in a different way or to use their time in prison as a positive moment.”

As soon as they learned they would be able to greet the pope in person, the inmates got busy making him a gift. Thanks to one of the penitentiary’s craft workshops, they handcrafted a small silver cross that reproduces the Cross of Hope, embossed with the anchor logo and the Christogram.

The prison has various spaces where inmates can develop their creativity. For example, in the workshop called Metamorphosis, they transform the battered barges that transport migrants from the Mediterranean to Europe into various objects, such as rosaries, which are then delivered to the Vatican.

“One of the first things he [Francis] did as pope was to wash the feet of those detained in the Casal del Marmo prison, a gesture he performed almost every Holy Thursday during the 12 years of his pontificate. Until shortly before his death, he wanted to visit Regina Caeli prison, although he couldn’t celebrate Mass with them because he had just left the hospital,” Fibbi recalled.

He even decided to make an exception during the 2025 Jubilee, dedicated to hope, and open a holy door in the Roman prison as well.

“In the bull announcing the Ordinary Jubilee of 2025, , he named the prison as the first place to bring hope,” the priest explained.

Fibbi shared that the prison’s detainees experienced the April 21 death of Pope Francis with great sadness and wanted to be in the front row at his funeral.

“I clearly saw them participate with great emotion in Pope Francis’ funeral. They loved him very much,” the priest noted.

Pope Leo XIV’s gesture of wanting to receive the two detainees in the audience appears to continue Francis’ legacy.

Vatican City, Jun 6, 2025 / 09:35 am (CNA).

A group of European bishops have turned to Pope Leo XIV and the Holy See for help as the Court of Justice of the European Union reviews a Belgian court case about the cancellation of names from baptismal records.

In a May 23 audience at the Vatican, Pope Leo XIV “told us that he considers the issue very important. He mentioned it right from the start. He said, ‘I really want to hear your opinion,’” , a lawyer and assistant general secretary of the European Union bishops’ conference (COMECE), told ACI Stampa, CNA’s Italian-language news partner.

The Court of Justice of the European Union is currently hearing a case brought by the Brussels Court of Appeal, which asked for clarification about whether the Catholic Church’s refusal to erase names from baptismal records when requested is in violation of Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation.

That rule has regulated the processing of personal data within the European Union since May 2018. The ruling of the European court is expected at the end of 2026 or in 2027.

Calcagno told ACI Stampa that when a baptized Catholic would ask to be removed from a register, usually a note was written in the margin of the document stating “formal apostasy from the faith.” The record that baptism had taken place would remain as a historical fact. 

But at the end of 2023, in the Diocese of Ghent in Belgium, someone asked for all of their data to be completely removed from the register, which was opposed by the diocese.

There were already some similar cases in Europe in 1995, Calcagno said, but all with national court rulings favorable to the Church.

Now, he said, is “the first time that there have been small attempts to undermine this positive tendency. Because until now, case law stated that the judgment was [to add a] notation, but suddenly the idea of the cancellation [of data] has arrived.”

The question of how this can be resolved is open and the subject of a legal tug-of-war between authorities and the Church. 

“In both Belgium and the Netherlands, there is an attempt by secular civil courts to interpret canon law to argue in favor of cancellation,” Calcagno noted. “This is a great danger because if you start to enter into a law that is not your own, you start to manipulate [that law].”

COMECE is working with the Holy See to defend the Church’s position on the issue of baptismal records.

The role of COMECE has been to “bring together reflections and legal arguments when certain cases arise at the European Union level,” Calcagno said, and to hold meetings with various jurists from the national bishops’ conferences.

“We gathered many arguments that were then used,” he said. “Several member states intervened in the procedure, and there was also work done by the churches at the local level. In addition, there was strong collaboration with the Holy See, and , specifically on cancellations from baptismal registers, and we worked very intensively with the Holy See on this.”

The note from the Dicastery for Legislative Texts affirmed that “canon law does not allow the modification or cancellation of registrations made in the baptismal register, except to correct possible transcription errors. The purpose of this register is to provide certainty regarding certain acts, making it possible to verify their actual existence.”

The issue has been monitored for years, and solutions that the European Court will accept are being sought. But it should be clarified, according to Calcagno, that “the court is merely drafting a response to questions it has received from a national court. It is not an initiative against the Church by the European Union. It is a response to clarifications requested at the national level.”

The answer will take a few years, he explained, because “there has to be a public hearing, then there is an advocate general who gives guidance, called conclusions, and then the ruling comes.” 

According to a , 1,270 Catholics in Belgium requested their names be removed from the baptismal register, due largely to profound fallout and public outrage over the handling of sexual abuse scandals.

Vatican City, Jun 6, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

When will Carlo Acutis be canonized? That is the question Catholics are asking after the ceremony scheduled for April 27 was postponed due to the death of Pope Francis.

The young millennial, who suffered from leukemia and whose astonishing life and love for the Catholic Church sparked worldwide interest, died on Oct. 12, 2006, and was buried in Assisi, according to his wishes, due to his admiration for St. Francis.

Acutis was declared venerable in 2018 and blessed on Oct. 10, 2020. On May 23, 2024, Pope Francis paved the way for the youth to be elevated to sainthood after approving a second miracle attributed to his intercession.

The scientifically inexplicable event that allegedly occurred with Acutis’ intervention concerned a 21-year-old Costa Rican woman, Valeria Valverde, who miraculously survived a serious bicycle accident that left her on the verge of death with a severe head injury.

Last July, Pope Francis convened an ordinary public consistory to confirm several causes for canonization. This ceremony determined the final step of the canonization process through a vote. In addition to Acutis, the canonizations of Blesseds Giuseppe Allamano, Marie-Léonie Paradis, and Elena Guerra were also approved.

However, although the consistory approved Acutis’ canonization, the pontiff did not determine the exact date on which he would be proclaimed a saint.

The long-awaited announcement came a few months later, last November, when Pope Francis indicated at the end of a general audience that the young man known as “God’s influencer“ would be elevated to the altars on April 27, 2025, coinciding with the Jubilee of Teenagers.

The news was received with great enthusiasm by the faithful — and especially by teenagers from around the world, tens of thousands of whom made plans to travel to Rome to be part of this historic event. However, the ceremony had to be postponed following Pope Francis’ death on April 21.

Now, following the path forged by Francis, Pope Leo XIV has convened his first consistory for June 13 to confirm the canonization of eight blesseds whose processes were initiated by his predecessor. However, Acutis’ name is not included on the official list of blesseds.

Asked about the reasons why Acutis is not among these names, Monsignor Alberto Royo, promoter of the faith at the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, explained to ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, that “his canonization was approved in the last consistory [on July 1, 2024], so he is no longer included in this one.”

In this regard, he clarified that the canonization date “is not something that is approved in the consistory, but rather the pope normally announces it on that occasion, although not necessarily,” he added.

“In the case of Carlo Acutis, the pope did not announce the date at the consistory, and it was announced later by the Secretariat of State,” he continued.

Therefore, Royo pointed out that at the next consistory on June 13, “it could happen that the pope takes the opportunity to announce the new date of the canonization, but it could also happen that he doesn’t announce it and that it will be the Secretariat of State that does.”

Regarding Pier Giorgio Frassati, the young “mountaineer” whose canonization will be celebrated on Aug. 3, Royo recalled that Pope Francis “directly announced his canonization before the consistory had even been held,” which is why his name appears on the June 13 list.

The Vatican official referred to this gesture as one of Pope Francis’ “spontaneous actions” that “preempted the consistory process, as also happened with José Gregorio Hernández,” the first Venezuelan saint. “After all, he had the authority to do it,” he emphasized.

Vatican City, Jun 5, 2025 / 14:51 pm (CNA).

In his audience with members of the Vatican Secretariat of State on Thursday, Pope Leo XIV thanked them for their support in the first month of his pontificate.

Among those present was Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, who introduced the meeting with a brief address. Also participating was Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, substitute for general affairs of the Secretariat of State.

Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, secretary of relations with states within the Secretariat of State, did not participate in the audience because he is in Cuba for the 90th anniversary of relations between that Caribbean country and the Holy See.

At the outset of his speech, Pope Leo thanked the Secretariat of State for assisting him in the “first steps” of his pontificate and for “carrying forward the mission” entrusted to him.

“It comforts me to know that I am not alone and that I can share the responsibility of my universal ministry with you,” he said.

Then, extemporaneously, he said that “it is evident that the pope cannot continue alone and that it is very necessary to be able to count on the collaboration of many in the Holy See” and especially with the Secretariat of State.

He also recalled the beginnings of this institution, which date back to the end of the 15th century, and its evolution over the years, highlighting that currently almost half of the Secretariat of State is made up of laypeople and more than 50 women.

For the pope, this development reflects “the face of the Church: We share together the questions, difficulties, challenges, and hopes of the people of God present throughout the world,” always expressing “two essential dimensions: incarnation and catholicity.”

“We are incarnated in time and history, because if God has chosen the path of humanity and the languages ​​of humanity, the Church is also called to follow this path, so that the joy of the Gospel may reach all and be mediated in today’s cultures and languages,” he emphasized.

He also reflected on the “Catholic” and universal perspective, which allows for the appreciation of different cultures and sensibilities, serving as “a driving force committed to forging communion between the Church of Rome and the local Churches” as well as with the international community.

For the Holy Father, these two dimensions “have become increasingly constitutive of the Curia’s work,” marking a path that has guided the reform of the Roman Curia carried out by St. Paul VI.

The pope also explained that incarnation “refers to the concreteness of reality and to the specific and particular themes addressed by the various bodies of the Curia.”

On the other hand, he emphasized the Church’s universal character, recalling that “the mystery of the Church’s multiform unity demands a work of synthesis that can assist the pope’s action.” This bond of unity, he explained, is carried out by the Secretariat of State.

Pope Leo XIV cited , Pope Francis’ apostolic constitution on the Roman Curia and its service to the Church in the world.

“I know that these tasks are very demanding and, at times, may not be fully understood. Therefore, I wish to express my closeness to you and, above all, my deep gratitude,” he said.

The pope also expressed his gratitude for their “hidden work” in the service of the Church and for “the evangelical spirit that inspires it” while asking them that this place “not be contaminated by ambitions or antagonisms.”

“Be, instead, a true community of faith and charity, of brothers and sisters and sons and daughters of the pope,” who give their all generously for the good of the Church, the pope urged.

After entrusting them to the intercession of the Virgin Mary, he thanked them for their prayers for their ministry and imparted his blessing.

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 5, 2025 / 08:00 am (CNA).

In the summer of A.D. 325, more than 300 bishops gathered in Nicaea — located in modern-day northern Turkey — to promulgate a common Christian creed, settle Christological disputes that arose from the Arian heresy, and promote unity in the Church.

The first ecumenical council, known as the Council of Nicaea, is still accepted as authoritative by the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and many Protestant denominations. The common beliefs still offer a strong element of unity in an otherwise fractured Christianity 1,700 years later.

During the council, the bishops established the initial formulation of the Nicene Creed, which is the profession of faith still recited at the Catholic Mass, Orthodox liturgies, and some Protestant services. It also rejected heretical Arian claims that Christ was a created being who lacked an eternal divine nature and rather confirmed that the Son is eternally begotten of the Father.

The council was called by Emperor Constantine — a convert to Christianity — less than 15 years after the empire halted the persecution of Christians and granted them the freedom to worship. It came just 20 years after the reign of Emperor Diocletian, who brutally persecuted Christians for their rejection of paganism.

“That council represents a fundamental stage in the development of the creed shared by all the Churches and ecclesial communities,” Pope Leo XIV , acknowledging the 1,700th anniversary.

“While we are on the path towards the reestablishment of full communion among all Christians, we recognize that this unity can only be unity in faith,” the pontiff said.

The primary purpose of the council was to settle a major question about Christ’s divine nature and address Arianism, which was a heresy promoted by the priest Arius asserting that Jesus Christ was a created being and not eternal.

“Arius began to preach something that was scandalous to many Christian believers and [which] seemed incompatible to the Christian faith as witnessed to in Scripture and transmitted through the tradition of the Church,” Dominican Father Dominic Legge, the director of the Thomistic Institute and professor of theology, told CNA.

Arius that he believed the Father “made the Son” and “produced him as a son for himself by begetting him.” He wrote that “the Son was not always [in existence], for he was not [in existence] before his generation.” He asserted that Christ was not eternal but “came into existence by the Father’s will.” Arius contested that Christ “is not true God” but was rather “made God by participation.”

Legge said that Arius understood that “there’s an infinite gap between God and creatures,” but where he was mistaken was that “he thought that the Son was on the ‘creature’ side of that gap” and “not equal in divinity to God.”

“Therefore, he considered him to be the highest creature,” Legge added. “The first creature, but nonetheless a creature.”

Legge said that at Nicaea there was “a consensus of bishops with very different approaches to the mystery of God and they could see that Arius had to be wrong and so they condemned him and they affirmed that the Son is ‘God from God, true God from true God.’”

The language adopted at Nicaea expressly contradicted Arius, affirming Christ is “true God from true God, begotten not made, of one substance with the Father.” It condemned Arius’ view as heresy. The vote was nearly unanimous with more than 300 bishops voting in favor of this text and only two siding with Arius.

St. Athanasius, one of the most outspoken opponents of Arianism at the council and in its aftermath, wrote in his in the mid-fourth century that “the Scriptures declare the Son’s eternity.”

Athanasius notes, for example, that “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” He also cites Chapter 8 of the same Gospel in which “before Abraham was, I am,” invoking the divine name to indicate his eternity when appearing to Moses as the burning bush.

“The Lord himself says, ‘I am the Truth,’ not ‘I became the Truth,’ but always, ‘I am — I am the Shepherd — I am the Light‘ — and again, ‘Call me not, Lord and Master? And you call me well, for so I am,‘” Athanasius wrote. “Who, hearing such language from God, and the Wisdom, and Word of the Father, speaking of himself, will any longer hesitate about the truth, and not immediately believe that in the phrase ‘I am,‘ is signified that the Son is eternal and without beginning?”

Legge noted that Athanasius also warned that Arius’ position “threatened the central truth of Christianity that God became man for our salvation.”

Prior to the Council of Nicaea, bishops in the Church held many synods and councils to settle disputes that arose within Christianity.

This includes the Council of Jerusalem, which was an apostolic council , and many local councils that did not represent the entire Church. Regional councils “have a kind of binding authority — but they’re not global,” according to Thomas Clemmons, a professor of Church history at The Catholic University of America.

When the Roman Empire halted its Christian persecution and Emperor Constantine converted to the faith, this allowed “the opportunity to have a more broad, ecumenical council,” Clemmons told CNA. Constantine embraced Christianity more than a decade before the council, though he was not actually baptized until moments before his death in A.D. 337.

Constantine saw a need for “a certain sense of unity,” he said, at a time with theological disputes, debates about the date of Easter, conflicts about episcopal jurisdictions, and canon law questions.

“His role was to unify and to have [those] other issues worked out,” Clemmons said.

The pursuit of unity helped produce , which Clemmons said “helps to clarify what more familiar scriptural language doesn’t.”

Neither the council nor the creed was universally adopted immediately. Clemmons noted that it was more quickly adopted in the East but took longer in the West. There were several attempts to overturn the council, but Clemmons said “it’s later tradition that will affirm it.”

“I don’t know if the significance of it was understood [at the time],” he said.

The dispute between Arians and defenders of Nicaea were tense for the next half century, with some emperors backing the creed and others backing Arianism. Ultimately, Clemmons said, the creed “convinces people over many decades but without the imperial enforcement you would expect.”

It was not until 380 when Emperor Theodosius declared that Nicene Christianity was the official religion of the Roman Empire. One year later, at the First Council of Constantinople, the Church reaffirmed the Council of Nicaea and updated the Nicene Creed by adding text about the Holy Spirit and the Church.

There are some prominent misconceptions about the Council of Nicaea that are prevalent in modern society.

Clemmons said the assertion that the Council of Nicaea established the biblical canon “is probably the most obvious” misconception. This subject was not debated at Nicaea and the council did not promulgate any teachings on this matter.

Another misconception, he noted, is the notion that the council established the Church and the papacy. Episcopal offices, including that of the pope (the bishop of Rome), were already in place and operating long before Nicaea, although the council did resolve some jurisdictional disputes.

Other misconceptions, according to Clemmons, is an asserted “novelty” of the process and the teachings. He noted that bishops often gathered in local councils and that the teachings defined at Nicaea were simply “the confirmation of the faith of the early Church.”

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 4, 2025 / 17:06 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin in a phone call Wednesday afternoon.

“The pope made an appeal for Russia to take a gesture that would favor peace, emphasizing the importance of dialogue to create positive contacts between the parties and seek solutions to the conflict,” Holy See Press Office Director Matteo Bruni said in a .

Bruni told members of the press that the Holy Father appealed to the Russian leader about the humanitarian situation in Ukraine and advocated for the facilitation of aid into affected areas.

The two leaders also discussed Cardinal Matteo Maria Zuppi’s efforts to facilitate prisoner exchanges. 

“Pope Leo made reference to Patriarch Kirill, thanking him for the congratulations received at the beginning of his pontificate, and underlined how shared Christian values can be a light that helps to seek peace, defend life, and pursue genuine religious freedom,” Bruni added. 

“Gratitude was expressed to the pontiff for his readiness to help settle the crisis, in particular the Vatican’s participation in resolving difficult humanitarian issues on a depoliticized basis,” the Kremlin said in a statement following the call, . 

The Kremlin’s statement further said Putin stressed his belief to the Holy Father “that the Kyiv regime is banking on escalating the conflict and is carrying out sabotage against civilian infrastructure sites on Russian territory.”

Pope Leo XIV’s first call with Putin comes just over three weeks after . At the time, Bruni confirmed the two leaders had spoken after the pope expressed concern for Ukraine during his May 11 Sunday address.

“I carry in my heart the sufferings of the beloved Ukrainian people,” Pope Leo had said after singing the Regina Coeli prayer with approximately 100,000 people.

“May everything possible be done to reach an authentic, just, and lasting peace, as soon as possible,” the Holy Father continued.

At the time, Zelenskyy shared a photo on of him purportedly having a telephone call with Pope Leo. After expressing gratitude to the Holy Father “for his support for Ukraine and all our people,” Zelenskyy said he and the pope specifically discussed the plight of thousands of children deported by Russia.

“Ukraine counts on the Vatican’s assistance in bringing them home to their families,” he added. 

Reiterating Ukraine’s commitment to work toward a “full and unconditional ceasefire” and the end of the war with Russia, Ukraine’s president said he also invited the Holy Father “to make an apostolic visit to Ukraine.” 

The final delivered by Pope Francis the day before his death included a prayer for the embattled country: “May the risen Christ grant Ukraine, devastated by war, his Easter gift of peace and encourage all parties involved to pursue efforts aimed at achieving a just and lasting peace.”

Vatican City, Jun 4, 2025 / 15:52 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV will gather the cardinals at the Vatican on June 13 to give final approval to the canonizations of eight blesseds whose causes were promoted by Pope Francis.

This event is known as an ordinary public consistory and will be the first of Pope Leo XIV’s pontificate. It should be noted that Pope Francis convened it at the end of February, when he was hospitalized at the Gemelli Hospital in Rome, but no date was set.

This ceremony determines the final step of the canonization process through a vote to set the date on which the blessed will be proclaimed a saint.

On Wednesday, the Office of Liturgical Celebrations confirmed the list of blesseds.

Among them is , an Italian layman and lawyer and founder of the Shrine of Our Lady of the Rosary in Pompeii, Italy.

After abandoning spiritualism and Satanist sects, he embraced Catholicism, became a fervent catechist and a man dedicated to assisting those most in need. He is also recognized as one of the 20th century’s greatest disseminators of devotion to the rosary.

The June 13 consistory is also expected to vote on the date of canonization of the “doctor of the poor,” Venezuelan .

Also on the list is , the first blessed from Papua New Guinea, who was killed in World War II for defending marriage.

The cardinals will also decide the date of canonization of , founder of the Sisters of Mercy of Verona, credited with the inexplicable cure of Audelia Parra, a Chilean woman.

, a bishop martyred in the Armenian genocide of 1915, will also be canonized soon.

, founder of the Congregation of the Servants of Jesus, is slated to become Venezuela’s first female saint. “Mother Carmen,” as many knew her, will be remembered for her immense kindness and wise prudence.

, a professed religious of the Congregation of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians. This future saint was an Italian missionary who spent much of her life in Ecuador.

Finally, there is , a lay member of the Third Order of St. Dominic, whose canonization is scheduled for Aug. 3. This adventurer and mountain climber developed a profound love for Christ in the Eucharist and the Virgin Mary from a young age.

In his youth, he devoted himself entirely to serving the poor and sought to evangelize through politics, bringing his friends closer to the faith.

Vatican City, Jun 4, 2025 / 11:34 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV met with the National Italian American Foundation on Wednesday and blessed their work in continuing the spiritual and cultural legacy of their ancestors.

Before holding his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square, the Holy Father met with board members of the leading Italian American foundation and thanked them for their various initiatives in the U.S. and Italy.

“Your work to continue to educate young people regarding Italian culture and history as well as providing scholarships and other charitable assistance in both countries helps to maintain a mutually beneficial and concrete connection between the two nations,” Pope Leo said at the morning meeting.

The foundation, which this year celebrates its 50th anniversary, provides $1.5 million each year in educational scholarships and heritage travel opportunities to young students.

During the brief meeting, the Holy Father said the Catholic faith is a “hallmark” of the legacy built by many people who immigrated to the U.S. from Italy.

“A hallmark of many who immigrated to the United States from Italy was their Catholic faith, with its rich traditions of popular piety and devotions that they continued to practice in their new nation,” he said. “This faith sustained them in difficult moments, even as they arrived with a sense of hope for a prosperous future in their new country.” 

Robert Allegrini, National Italian American Foundation president and CEO, told CNA on Wednesday that it was a “tremendous honor” for the organization to meet with the Church’s first U.S.-born pope.

“The warmth of His Holiness’ Italian heritage was manifested in the gracious and pious reception he accorded to each and every member of our delegation,” he shared. “The pope was very happy to hear that the president of the National Italian American Foundation was a fellow Chicagoan.” 

“What is particularly meaningful for us as Italian Americans is that we feel that we combine the best elements of both the Italian and American cultures, traditions, and values,” he said. “This makes us truly special and truly in sympathy with the pope who shares those traits with us.” 

Toward the end of the meeting, Pope Leo encouraged the delegation to also be pilgrims in the Eternal City this week, in addition to their separate Wednesday meetings with him and Italian President Sergio Matarella.

“Your visit to the Vatican occurs during the jubilee year, which is focused on hope, which ‘dwells as the desire and expectation of good things to come, despite our not knowing what the future may bring,’” the Holy Father said, quoting .

“In an age beset by many challenges, may your time here, in a city marked by the tombs of the apostles Peter and Paulas well as many saints who strengthened the Church throughout difficult periods of history, may thisrenew your sense of hope and trust in the future,” he said, before imparting his apostolic blessing upon the delegation, their families, and loved ones.

According to the 2022 American Community Survey, released by the United States Census Bureau, 16 million people, accounting for 4.8% of the total U.S. population, reported having Italian ancestry.

Vatican City, Jun 4, 2025 / 10:09 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV held the third general audience of his pontificate on Wednesday, telling the faithful that even when we feel useless and inadequate, “the Lord reminds us that our life is worthy.”

“Even when it seems we are able to do little in life, it is always worthwhile. There is always the possibility to find meaning, because God loves our life,” Leo said in a sunny St. Peter’s Square on June 4, four days before the one-month mark of his pontificate.

In his catechesis, the pope reflected on the parable of the vineyard workers, which is recounted in the Gospel of Matthew 20:1-16. Leo affirmed that, like the owner of the vineyard, Jesus “does not establish rankings, he gives all of himself to those who open their hearts to him.”

This parable “is a story that fosters our hope,” the pontiff said. “Indeed, at times we have the impression that we cannot find meaning for our lives: We feel useless, inadequate, just like the laborers who wait in the marketplace, waiting for someone to hire them to work.”

Just like the laborers waiting in the market for work, the pope argued, sometimes we are waiting a long time to be acknowledged or appreciated, and we may end up “selling ourselves to the first bidder” in the marketplace, where affection and dignity are bought and sold in an attempt to make a profit.

“God never gives up on us; he is always ready to accept us and give meaning and hope to our lives, however hopeless our situation may seem and however insignificant our merits may appear,” the pope said in his English-language summary of the lesson, which he read himself.

The tireless landowner in the parable goes out over and over again to seek laborers for his fields, even late into the day, when the remaining workers had probably given up all hope, Leo said. “That day had come to nothing. Nevertheless, someone still believed in them.” 

The behavior of the owner of the vineyard is also unusual in other ways, he noted, including that he “comes out in person in search of his laborers. Evidently, he wants to establish a personal relationship with them.”

Then, “for the owner of the vineyard, that is, for God, it is just that each person has what he needs to live. He called the laborers personally, he knows their dignity, and on the basis of this, he wants to pay them, and he gives all of them one denarius,” even those who only worked the last hour of the day, Pope Leo emphasized.

According to the pontiff, the laborers who had spent all day working were disappointed, because “they cannot see the beauty of the gesture of the landowner, who was not unjust but simply generous; who looked not only at merit but also at need.”

Leo warned Christians against the temptation to think they can delay their work in the vineyard because their pay will be the same either way.

He quoted St. Augustine, who said in his Sermon 87: “Why dost thou put off him that calleth thee, certain as thou art of the reward, but uncertain of the day? Take heed then lest peradventure what he is to give thee by promise, thou take from thyself by delay.”

“Do not wait, but respond enthusiastically to the Lord who calls us to work in his vineyard,” the pontiff said, appealing especially to young people. “Do not delay, roll up your sleeves, because the Lord is generous and you will not be disappointed! Working in his vineyard, you will find an answer to that profound question you carry within you: What is the meaning of my life?”

“Let us not be discouraged,” Leo added. “Even in the dark moments of life, when time passes without giving us the answers we seek, let us ask the Lord who will come out again and find us where we are waiting for him. He is generous, and he will come soon!”

CNA Staff, Jun 3, 2025 / 11:59 am (CNA).

In his first prayer intention video of his papacy, Pope Leo XIV has asked the faithful to pray that the world might grow in compassion during the month of June.

“Let us pray that each one of us might find consolation in a personal relationship with Jesus, and from his heart, learn to have compassion on the world,” the pope said in a video released June 3.

The video also includes an original prayer to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, to which the month of June is dedicated. 

According to a , the international director of the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network, Jesuit Father Cristóbal Fones, explained that Pope Leo XIV’s prayer intention focuses on growing in compassion for the world through a personal relationship with Jesus.

“By cultivating this truly close relationship, our hearts are more conformed to his. We grow in love and mercy, and we better learn what compassion is,” Fones said. “Jesus manifested an unconditional love for everyone, especially for the poor, the sick, and those who were suffering. The pope encourages us to imitate this compassionate loveby extending a hand to those in need.”

He added: “Compassion seeks to alleviate suffering and to promote human dignity. This is why it is translated into concrete actions that address the roots of poverty, inequality, and exclusion, so as to contribute to the construction of a more just and solidary world.”

Here is the full prayer to the Sacred Heart of Jesus:

Lord, I come to your tender heart today,
to you who have words that set my heart ablaze,
to you who pour out compassion on the little ones and the poor,
on those who suffer, and on all human miseries.

I desire to know you more, to contemplate you in the Gospel,
to be with you and learn from you
and from the charity with which you allowed yourself
to be touched by all forms of poverty.

You showed us the Father’s love by loving us without measure
with your divine and human heart.

Grant all your children the grace of encountering you.
Change, shape, and transform our plans,
so that we seek only you in every circumstance:
in prayer, in work, in encounters, and in our daily routine.

From this encounter, send us out on mission,
a mission of compassion for the world
in which you are the source from which all consolation flows.

Amen.

The video prayer intention is promoted by the , which raises awareness of monthly papal prayer intentions.

Vatican City, Jun 3, 2025 / 09:00 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV on Sunday blessed the cyclists of the Giro d’Italia before the last leg of the multistage international race, telling them they are all welcome in the Catholic Church.

Addressing the 159 cyclists in a square just inside Vatican City, the pope said in English: “May God bless all of you on this last part of the Giro d’Italia. Congratulations to all of you, and may you know that you are always welcome here in the Vatican, you are always welcomed by the Church, which represents God’s love for all people.”

In a short address in Italian, Leo praised cycling as an important sport, reminding the world-class athletes that they are models for many young people.

“And I hope that, just as you have learned to care for the body, the spirit too is always blessed, and that you are always attentive to the human being as a whole: body, mind, and spirit,” he added.

The professional race, which started in Albania on May 9, is among the top three most important international multistage races in the world, together with the Tour de France and the Vuelta a Espana. It includes 21 stages, mostly in Italy.

The last leg of the 108th edition of the race took place on June 1, starting from the Caracalla Baths, just south of the Coliseum, and proceeding toward the Vatican.

The 1.8-mile noncompetitive ride through the Vatican started from the Petriano Square, just south of St. Peter’s Basilica inside the city state, where Pope Leo XIV greeted the athletes at the starting line.  

The cyclists then followed the Vatican walls past the basilica to climb toward the Vatican Gardens and arrive at the heliport, the highest, westernmost point of the territory.

The racers then pedaled through a green space dotted with Marian images, including a replica of the Lourdes grotto and a mosaic of Our Lady of Good Counsel — a favorite devotion of Pope Leo. 

After descending toward the Vatican Museums and the “Square Garden,” the cyclists doubled back along the rear of St. Peter’s Basilica to exit out a side gate on the south side of Vatican City.

ACI Prensa Staff, Jun 2, 2025 / 17:37 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV recalled the life and legacy of Cardinal in Pectore Iuliu Hossu, a Romanian Greek Catholic bishop, “pastor and martyr of the faith during the communist persecution in Romania,” who was commemorated Monday in the Vatican and who saved thousands of Jews from death during World War II.

“We have gathered today in the Sistine Chapel to commemorate, in the jubilee year dedicated to hope, an apostle of hope: Blessed Cardinal Iuliu Hossu, Greek Catholic bishop of Cluj-Gherla,” said the Holy Father at the beginning of his address at the commemoration ceremony for the cardinal, who died 55 years ago on May 28, 1970.

“Today,” Pope Leo continued, “he enters this chapel after St. Paul VI, on April 28, 1969, named him cardinal in pectore (in secret) while he was in prison for his fidelity to the Church of Rome.”

Hossu’s appointment as a cardinal was not known until 1973, three years after the death of the cardinal in pectore, according to Vatican News.

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, the pope can create a cardinal in pectore, a designation known only to him and the cardinal. He does not acquire the rights of a cardinal until it is publicly announced. If the pope dies before this is known, he does not become a member of the College of Cardinals.

In his remarks, Leo XIV emphasized that this year the cardinal is especially remembered, as he is “a symbol of fraternity that transcends any ethnic or religious boundaries. His recognition process as ‘,’ which began in 2022, is based on his courageous commitment to supporting and saving the Jews of Northern Transylvania when, between 1940 and 1944, the Nazis implemented the tragic plan to deport them to the extermination camps.”

The title of “Righteous Among the Nations” is awarded by the Yad Vashem Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem to non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews from extermination at the hands of the Nazis.

Leo XIV then recalled a passage from a 1944 pastoral letter written by the blessed martyr in which he stated: “Our appeal is addressed to all of you, venerable brothers and beloved children, to help the Jews not only with your thoughts but also with your sacrifice, aware that today we can accomplish no nobler work than this Christian and Romanian aid, born of ardent human charity. The first concern of the present moment must be this work of relief.”

“Cardinal Hossu, between 1940 and 1944, contributed to saving thousands of Jews from death in northern Transylvania. The hope of the great shepherd was that of the faithful man, who knows that the gates of evil will not prevail against the work of God,” the Holy Father continued.

After emphasizing that he was a man who lived “prayer and dedication to others,” Pope Leo recalled that Pope Francis beatified Hossu on June 2, 2019, in Blaj, Romania — along with six other martyred bishops — and highlighted a phrase from his homily that belonged to the bishop and cardinal: “God has sent us into this darkness of suffering to forgive and pray for the conversion of all.”

For Pope Leo XIV, the phrase “remains today a prophetic invitation to overcome hatred through forgiveness and to live the faith with dignity and courage.”

The pope also emphasized that “Cardinal Hossu’s message is more timely than ever. What he did for the Jews of Romania, the actions he undertook to protect others, despite all the risks and dangers, show him as a model of a free, courageous, and generous man, even to the point of supreme sacrifice.”

“Therefore, his motto, ‘Our faith is our life,’ should become the motto of each one of us.”

After encouraging Hossu’s example to be “a light for the world today,” Pope Leo XIV finally exclaimed: “Let us say ‘no’ to violence, to any violence, even more so if it is perpetrated against defenseless and vulnerable people, such as children and families!”

Iuliu Hossu was a Greek Catholic bishop and cardinal in pectore. He was born on Jan. 30, 1885, in Milas.

In 1904, he began his theological studies at the College of Propaganda Fide in Rome. In 1906 and 1908, he earned doctorates in philosophy and theology, respectively. On March 27, 1910, he was ordained a priest.

According to Vatican News, on March 3, 1917, he was appointed bishop of the Greek Catholic Eparchy of Gerla in Transylvania. In 1930, the eparchy changed its name to Cluj-Gherla, moving its center to the city of Cluj Napoca. There was a period of occupation there between 1940 and 1944.

On Oct. 28, 1948, Hossu was arrested by the communist government and taken to Dragoslavele. He was later transferred to the Orthodox Monastery of Caldarusani and in 1950 to the Sighetul Marmatiei Penitentiary. In 1955 he arrived at Curtea de Arges, in 1956 at the monastery of Ciorogarla, and finally back to Caldarusani.

In August 1961, he wrote this in prison: “I have not been able to take away your love, Lord; it is enough for me: I ask your forgiveness for all my sins and I thank you with all my being for all that you have given me, your unworthy servant.”

Hossu was deprived of all freedom until his death on May 28, 1970, at the Colentina Hospital in Bucharest, where his last words were: “My battle is over; yours continues.”

Vatican City, Jun 2, 2025 / 16:09 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV on Monday said Christian families are called to be missionaries of the Gospel to new generations, especially in light of a widespread “privatization” of faith preventing many people from approaching the Church.

In the Holy Father’s message to participants of a June 2–3 seminar organized by the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Laity, Family, and Life on the theme “Evangelizing with the Families of Today and Tomorrow: Ecclesiological and Pastoral Challenges,” he said the Church needs to be farsighted in discerning the needs of parents and children often caught up in “worldly concerns” or misled by “illusory lifestyles.”

“Sadly, in the face of this need, an increasingly widespread ‘privatization’ of faith often prevents these brothers and sisters from knowing the richness and gifts of the Church, a place of grace, fraternity, and love,” Pope Leo shared in his June 2 message.

“As a result, despite their healthy and holy desires, while they sincerely seek ways to climb the exciting upward paths to life and abundant joy, many end up relying on false footholds that are unable to support the weight of their deepest needs,” he continued.

With a “maternal concern” for all Christian families, the pope said it is the responsibility of the Church — bishops and the laity — to reach out to families who are “spiritually most distant from us” and become “fishers of families.”

“‘Fishers’ of couples, young people, children, women, and men of all ages and circumstances, so that all may encounter the one Savior,” he said. “Through baptism, each one of us has been made a priest, king, and prophet for our brothers and sisters, and a ‘living stone’ (1 Pt 2:4) for the building up of God’s house.”

“I ask you, then, to join in the work of the whole Church in seeking out those families who no longer come to us, in learning how to walk with them and to help them embrace the faith and become in turn ‘fishers’ of other families,” he added. 

Addressing his concern that many young people are choosing cohabitation instead of marriage, the Holy Father said couples need guides who can reveal “the beauty and grandeur” of the vocation to love and service through Christian marriage and the gift of family. 

“In reality [they] need someone to show them in a concrete and clear way, especially by the example of their lives, what the gift of sacramental grace is and what strength derives from it,” he said. 

“Similarly, many parents, in raising their children in the faith, feel the need for communities that can support them in creating the right conditions for their children to encounter Jesus,” he continued.

Despite difficulties and problems families face, Pope Leo said spreading “the gospel of the family” is a mission that can only be sustained by prayer and an encounter with Christ.

“Consequently, if we want to help families experience joyful paths of communion and be seeds of faith for one another, we must first cultivate and renew our own identity as believers,” he said.

“May the Holy Spirit guide you in discerning criteria and methods that support and promote the Church’s efforts to minister to families,” he continued. “Let us help families to listen courageously to Christ’s proposal and the Church’s words of encouragement!”

Vatican City, Jun 2, 2025 / 12:17 pm (CNA).

The Vatican Library is the custodian of a major part of humanity’s literary heritage. That includes more than 80,000 ancient manuscripts and 2 million printed books (8,600 of which are “incunabula,” that is, printed before 1501); a graphic collection (drawings, maps, engravings, photographs); 150,000 documents; a large collection of coins and medals (300,000 pieces); and a collection of archives (100,000). 

The library is currently in the process of digitizing and publishing online all the manuscripts it houses, a project that first started in 2012. When necessary, manuscripts receive conservation treatments or are restored before digitization. So far, some 30,000 manuscripts have been digitized and published online. This work is made possible due to the support of many benefactors, including the Sanctuary of Culture Foundation, which generously supports the digitization and restoration of manuscripts as well as other projects. 

Recently, a new collaboration was launched between the Vatican Library and the Colnaghi Foundation, a prestigious art gallery founded in 1760. The two institutions are working together specifically on the library’s archives section.

The five-year agreement provides for the restoration and reorganization of the archives’ storage facilities, which will improve the future preservation of documents spanning the 10th to the 20th century. The archival collections include documents of exceptional historical value.

The project, which involves a complete reorganization of the department, including new shelving systems and renovations, will be led by the renowned British architectural firm David Chipperfield Architects.

The Colnaghi Foundation has promoted the creation of an association, the Patrons of the Vatican Library, to assist in the project and to study and carry out other projects related to the conservation treatments of many of the archival manuscripts.

The association has provided a new system for scanning the surface of documents, called , developed by the Factum Foundation. Among other benefits, this device makes it possible to bring to light parts of objects that are hidden from view.

To celebrate this collaboration between the art world, represented by the Colnaghi Foundation and the Vatican Library, the “Codex” exhibition opened on May 26.

The exhibit features 14 works from private collections that are not normally exhibited. The library has also selected 15 documents from its collections (manuscripts and archival documents) related to the people portrayed in the exhibited works, the curators of those works, or the artists who created them.

On June 3, the works will return to private collections, and the Vatican manuscripts will be returned to their original collections.

The works on display offer a visual and historical journey through sacred art and portraits from the Renaissance and Baroque periods, highlighting pieces by some of history’s greatest masters.

The exhibition opens with “Saint Peter Penitent” by Flemish artist Anthony van Dyck, which depicts the weeping apostle with a deeply human expression of repentance and features baroque chiaroscuro (strong light and dark contrasts).

The exhibition continues with “The Triumph of Flora,” a mythological allegory by Mario Nuzzi, exuberant in color and symbolism, which celebrates the fertility of nature with a festive and decorative spirit that contrasts with the gravity of other pieces.

Another work on display is Michelangelo Buonarroti’s preparatory sketch for “The Adoration of the Brazen Serpent,” a powerful scene from the Old Testament. The drawing demonstrates the artist’s anatomical and expressive intensity, which manages to condense drama and redemption into a single figure.

The exhibition also includes works by other influential artists of the 16th and 17th centuries, such as Titian’s “Portrait of Pope Paul III,” painted during his trip to Rome between October 1545 and May 1546. This painting, in which the pope appears with a shrewd expression and the traditional camauro (red cap with white trim), a symbol of his authority, belongs to a private collection and is kept in Lisbon, Portugal.

Another portrait is that of “Clement VII,” painted by Sebastiano del Piombo. A highlight by the artist Tintoretto is his “Portrait of Cardinal Marcantonio da Mula,” which demonstrates the painter’s skill in combining the cardinal’s dignified appearance with dynamism.

Also featured in the exhibition is Guido Reni’s portrait of Camillo Borghese (later Paul V), painted during the first decade of the 17th century.

Among library documents featured in the exhibition, which aim to suggest a real dialogue with the works of art, are the 1628 invoice sent to the bishop of Gubbio for three Caravaggio paintings, including “The Card Cheats”; some notes and autograph drawings by Michelangelo Buonarroti; as well as a 1657 letter by Cardinal da Mula to Cardinal Guglielmo Sirleto.

Also among the documents in the exhibition is a 1526 contract signed with Sebastiano del Piombo for a panel of the “Nativity of the Virgin” in the Church of Santa Maria del Popolo.

The sharing of cultural heritage embodied by the Codex initiative represents, for the library, an essential tool for building bridges between cultures. The exhibition is considered a beautiful and concrete example of this, and an important demonstration of the collaboration between different institutions working together to achieve positive results in the conservation of cultural heritage.

CNA Newsroom, Jun 1, 2025 / 19:56 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV urged French Catholics to embark on a profound spiritual renewal by following the example of three beloved saints as France commemorated the centenary of their canonization.

In his to the French bishops’ conference, released by the Holy See Press Office on Saturday, the Holy Father highlighted St. , St. , and St. as powerful models for contemporary evangelization.

The pope emphasized their shared spiritual trait: “They loved Jesus unreservedly in a simple, strong, and authentic way” and experienced his goodness in daily closeness.

The pontiff presented these saints as Catholics whose lives demonstrate the transformative power of Christ’s tender love.

Leo noted St. John Eudes as the first to celebrate liturgical worship of the Hearts of Jesus and Mary, St. John Mary Vianney as the priest who declared “The priesthood is the love of the heart of Jesus,” and St. Thérèse as the great who “breathed” Jesus’ name with spontaneity and freshness.

Pope Leo framed this anniversary not as mere nostalgia but as an opportunity for missionary momentum. He expressed hope that God can “renew the marvels he has accomplished in the past” through these saints’ intercession.

The pope specifically addressed the shortage of priestly vocations, asking whether these saints might inspire young people to embrace the priesthood’s “beauty, greatness, and fruitfulness.”

The message concluded with papal gratitude for French priests’ “courageous and persevering commitment” amid contemporary challenges, including “indifference, materialism, and individualism.”

Pope Leo invoked the saints’ intercession for France and placed the nation under the maternal protection of Our Lady of the Assumption.

CNA Newsroom, Jun 1, 2025 / 07:31 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV declared marriage is “not an ideal but the measure of true love between a man and a woman” and families are “the cradle of the future of humanity” as he celebrated Mass for thousands of pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square for the Jubilee of Families, Children, Grandparents, and the Elderly on Sunday.

Speaking to families from nearly 120 countries on a sunny morning in Rome, the the fundamental role of family relationships in God’s plan for salvation, drawing from the Gospel reading of Jesus’ prayer at the Last Supper.

“Dear friends, we received life before we ever desired it,” Pope Leo XIV said in his homily on June 1. “As soon as we were born, we needed others in order to live; left to ourselves, we would not have survived. Someone else saved us by caring for us in body and spirit. All of us are alive today thanks to a relationship, a free and freeing relationship of human kindness and mutual care.”

The Holy Father made an extended tour of the square in the popemobile before Mass, blessing children and greeting the crowds of families who had traveled to Rome for this major event of the 2025 Jubilee Year of Hope.

In Pope Leo XIV emphasized that marriage represents “not an ideal but the measure of true love between a man and a woman: a love that is total, faithful, and fruitful.” He cited Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical , noting that conjugal love “makes you one flesh and enables you, in the image of God, to bestow the gift of life.”

The pope highlighted several married couples as exemplars for today’s world, including , parents of St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus. He also remembered the , “parents and children, united in love and martyrdom” during World War II.

“By pointing to them as exemplary witnesses of married life, the Church tells us that today’s world needs the marriage covenant in order to know and accept God’s love and to defeat, thanks to its unifying and reconciling power, the forces that break down relationships and societies,” the pontiff said.

Pope Leo XIV offered specific guidance to different generations present at the celebration. To parents, he recommended being “examples of integrity to your children, acting as you want them to act, educating them in freedom through obedience, always seeing the good in them and finding ways to nurture it.”

Children received counsel to “show gratitude to your parents,” with the pope noting that saying “thank you” each day “is the first way to honor your father and your mother.”

To grandparents and elderly people, he recommended watching “over your loved ones with wisdom and compassion, and with the humility and patience that come with age.”

The Holy Father emphasized the family’s role in transmitting faith, declaring that “in the family, faith is handed on together with life, generation after generation. It is shared like food at the family table and like the love in our hearts.”

Following the Mass, Pope Leo XIV led the , using the occasion to remember families suffering from war.

“May the Virgin Mary bless families and sustain them in their difficulties. I think especially of those who suffer because of war in the Middle East, in Ukraine, and in other parts of the world,” he said.

The pontiff also commemorated the beatification of Blessed Cristofora Klomfass and 14 companion religious sisters of the Congregation of St. Catherine Virgin and Martyr, who were killed by Soviet soldiers in 1945 in territories of present-day Poland.

“Despite the climate of hatred and terror against the Catholic faith, they continued to serve the sick and orphans,” he noted.

During his remarks, Pope Leo XIV expressed particular joy at welcoming so many children to today’s celebration, calling them sources of renewed hope. He praised grandparents and elderly people as “genuine models of faith and inspiration for young generations.”

CNA Newsroom, Jun 1, 2025 / 07:18 am (CNA).

The Gospel we have just heard shows us Jesus, at the Last Supper, praying on our behalf (cf. Jn 17:20). The Word of God, made man, as he nears the end of his earthly life, thinks of us, his brothers and sisters, and becomes a blessing, a prayer of petition and praise to the Father, in the power of the Holy Spirit. As we ourselves, full of wonder and trust, enter into Jesus’ prayer, we become, thanks to his love, part of a great plan that concerns all of humanity.

Christ prays that we may “all be one” (v. 21). This is the greatest good that we can desire, for this universal union brings about among his creatures the eternal communion of love that is God himself: the Father who gives life, the Son who receives it, and the Spirit who shares it.

The Lord does not want us, in this unity, to be a nameless and faceless crowd. He wants us to be one: “As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us” (v. 21). The unity for which Jesus prays is thus a communion grounded in the same love with which God loves, which brings life and salvation into the world. As such, it is firstly a gift that Jesus comes to bring. From his human heart, the Son of God prays to the Father in these words: “I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me” (v. 23).

Let us listen with amazement to these words. Jesus is telling us that God loves us as he loves himself. The Father does not love us any less than he loves his only-begotten Son. In other words, with an infinite love. God does not love less, because he loves first, from the very beginning! Christ himself bears witness to this when he says to the Father: “You loved me before the foundation of the world” (v. 24). And so it is: In his mercy, God has always desired to draw all people to himself. It is his life, bestowed upon us in Christ, that makes us one, uniting us with one another.

Listening to this Gospel today, during the Jubilee of Families, Children, Grandparents, and the Elderly, fills us with joy.

Dear friends, we received life before we ever desired it. As Pope Francis said: “All of us are sons and daughters, but none of us chose to be born” (, Jan. 1, 2025). Not only that. As soon as we were born, we needed others in order to live; left to ourselves, we would not have survived. Someone else saved us by caring for us in body and spirit. All of us are alive today thanks to a relationship, a free and freeing relationship of human kindness and mutual care.

That human kindness is sometimes betrayed. As for example, whenever freedom is invoked not to give life but to take it away; not to help but to hurt. Yet even in the face of the evil that opposes and takes life, Jesus continues to pray to the Father for us. His prayer acts as a balm for our wounds; it speaks to us of forgiveness and reconciliation. That prayer makes fully meaningful our experience of love for one another as parents, grandparents, sons, and daughters. That is what we want to proclaim to the world: We are here in order to be “one” as the Lord wants us to be “one,” in our families and in those places where we live, work, and study. Different, yet one; many, yet one; always, in every situation and at every stage of life.

Dear friends, if we love one another in this way, grounded in Christ, who is “the Alpha and the Omega,” “the beginning and the end” (cf. Rev 22:13), we will be a sign of peace for everyone, in society and the world. Let us not forget: Families are the cradle of the future of humanity.

In recent decades, we have received a sign that fills us with joy but also makes us think. It is the fact that several spouses have been beatified and canonized, not separately, but as married couples. I think of Louis and Zélie Martin, the parents of St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus; and of Blessed Luigi and Maria Beltrame Quattrocchi, who raised a family in Rome in the last century. And let us not forget the Ulma family from Poland: parents and children, united in love and martyrdom. I said that this is a sign that makes us think. By pointing to them as exemplary witnesses of married life, the Church tells us that today’s world needs the marriage covenant in order to know and accept God’s love and to defeat, thanks to its unifying and reconciling power, the forces that break down relationships and societies.

For this reason, with a heart filled with gratitude and hope, I would remind all married couples that marriage is not an ideal but the measure of true love between a man and a woman: a love that is total, faithful, and fruitful (cf. St. Paul VI, , 9). This love makes you one flesh and enables you, in the image of God, to bestow the gift of life.

I encourage you, then, to be examples of integrity to your children, acting as you want them to act, educating them in freedom through obedience, always seeing the good in them and finding ways to nurture it. And you, dear children, show gratitude to your parents. To say “thank you” each day for the gift of life and for all that comes with it is the first way to honor your father and your mother (cf. Ex 20:12). Finally, dear grandparents and elderly people, I recommend that you watch over your loved ones with wisdom and compassion, and with the humility and patience that come with age.

In the family, faith is handed on together with life, generation after generation. It is shared like food at the family table and like the love in our hearts. In this way, families become privileged places in which to encounter Jesus, who loves us and desires our good, always.

Let me add one last thing. The prayer of the Son of God, which gives us hope on our journey, also reminds us that one day we will all be “uno unum” (cf. St. Augustine, “Sermo Super Ps. 127”): one in the one Savior, embraced by the eternal love of God. Not only us, but also our fathers, mothers, grandmothers, grandfathers, brothers, sisters, and children who have already gone before us into the light of his eternal Pasch, and whose presence we feel here, together with us, in this moment of celebration.

CNA Newsroom, May 31, 2025 / 17:58 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV has praised an international bioethics summit in Rome for advancing an “authentically human” approach to science, urging researchers to pursue truth grounded in the dignity of the human person.

In a message delivered by Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the pope expressed his “vivid appreciation” for the third International Bioethics Conference, held May 30–31 at .

The event was organized under the theme “The Splendor of Truth in Science and Bioethics.”

The pope described the initiative as “a valuable opportunity to reflect on the ethical implications of scientific progress” and encouraged “interdisciplinary dialogue grounded in the dignity of the human person,” according to the Vatican message. He expressed his hope that such efforts would “foster approaches to science that are increasingly authentically human and respectful of the integrity of the person.”

Held under the patronage of the Pontifical Academy for Life and the Dicastery for Culture and Education, the conference brought together nearly 400 participants — including researchers, physicians, philosophers, and legal scholars — from universities across Latin America, Europe, and Africa.

Cardinal Willem Jacobus Eijk of the Netherlands opened the conference with a keynote address outlining three foundational principles for bioethics and scientific research in service of truth.

The archbishop of Utrecht, who is also a medical doctor, on Friday said the Pontifical Academy for Life should to the bioethical issues linked to “transgender” treatments and the push for “gender theory.”

Eijk emphasized that human reason must recognize its ability to know metaphysical truth, that human beings possess only relative autonomy, and that human life is an intrinsic value.

The cardinal warned: “Without metaphysics and a proper anthropology, science becomes dangerous because it loses its moral compass.”

Spanish philosopher Juan Arana, a member of the Royal Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, argued that modern science too often neglects the pursuit of deeper philosophical truths. While acknowledging the empirical advances of science, he emphasized that “great truths of philosophy and the small truths of science” are still connected “by threads that, though subtle, are effective.”

Bernard Schumacher of the University of Fribourg criticized the modern scientific method for reducing reality to the mathematical and quantifiable, while French philosopher Thibaud Collin challenged assumptions within natural law theory.

Two roundtables tackled practical bioethical challenges in genetics and conscience rights. Geneticist Teresa Perucho, surgeon Emmanuel Sapin, and neonatologist Robin Pierucci discussed the moral foundations of genetic counseling and the need to support parents with compassion and clarity when faced with difficult prenatal diagnoses.

The conference was organized by the International Chair of Bioethics Jérôme Lejeune and supported by more than 40 academic institutions worldwide. Since its founding in 2023, the event has become a leading forum for Catholic engagement with contemporary bioethical issues.

Jean-Marie Le Méné, president of the Jérôme Lejeune Foundation, closed the gathering by recalling the late French geneticist’s legacy: “The scientist is one who admits without shame that what he knows is microscopic compared to all that he does not know — and is fascinated by the adventure of intelligence on the path toward the intelligible.”

Jérôme Lejeune, a devout Catholic and pioneer in genetics, discovered the chromosomal cause of Down syndrome and became a passionate defender of the unborn, laying the foundation for much of the Church’s engagement in bioethics today.

Pope Leo XIV concluded his message with a call for scientists to “contribute to the search for truth, so that science may remain at the service of humanity, never becoming its master.”

CNA Newsroom, May 31, 2025 / 09:30 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV ordained 11 new priests for the Diocese of Rome on Saturday during a Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica, urging them to live lives that are “transparent, visible, credible” in service to God’s people.

The ordination Mass brought together seminarians from both the Pontifical Roman Major Seminary and the Redemptoris Mater Seminary.

The pope described it as a moment of “great joy for the Church” and a sign that “God has not grown tired of gathering his children.”

In his homily, Pope Leo reflected on St. Paul’s words to the community in Ephesus: “You know how I lived the whole time I was with you,” pointing to the necessity of credibility in priestly life.

“We live among the people of God so that we may stand before them with a credible witness,” the pope said. “Together, we rebuild the credibility of a wounded Church, sent to a wounded humanity, within a wounded creation.”

The pope cautioned the ordinands against clerical self-isolation or entitlement.

“Pope Francis has warned us many times about this, because self-referentiality extinguishes the fire of mission.”

Leo emphasized that the priesthood is not about authority but stewardship: “Not masters, but guardians,” he said. “The mission belongs to Jesus. He is risen, and he goes before us. None of us is called to replace him.”

The pope concluded his homily by reflecting on the Church’s mission of reconciliation in a broken world. “Together, then, we will rebuild the credibility of a wounded Church, sent to a wounded humanity, within a wounded creation,” he said.

“It does not matter to be perfect, but it is necessary to be credible.” Drawing on the image of the risen Christ showing his wounds, Pope Leo XIV emphasized that even signs of rejection become sources of forgiveness and hope, making priests “ministers of hope” who view everything “under the sign of reconciliation.”

In his final words, the pontiff spoke of priestly service as participation in Christ’s love for the world. “The love of Christ indeed possesses us,” he said, describing this as “a possession that liberates and enables us not to possess anyone.”

Leo thanked the newly ordained for dedicating their lives to serve “a wholly priestly people” and invoked the intercession of Mary, whom he called “Our Lady of Trust and Mother of Hope,” asking her to pray for the Church’s mission to “unite heaven and earth.”

Vatican City, May 31, 2025 / 08:00 am (CNA).

The Church in the Netherlands is gaining momentum thanks to the “creative minority” of young people rediscovering the Catholic faith, Cardinal Willem Eijk said.

Though Eijk considers the approximately 3.4 million Catholics as a religious minority in the European country with a total population of 17.9 million people, the Dutch cardinal said he has great hope in the younger generations.

“There are young people who belong to families alienated from the Church for generations and they rediscover Christ in his Church and embrace the doctrine of the Church,” he said in an interview with EWTN Vatican News Director Andreas Thonhauser.

“Every year we see a growing number of young people asking for admission to the Church,” he said. “They discover the truth concerning Christ and the Gospel through the internet, TikTok, and social media.”

Describing his surprise at the impact new technologies have had in attracting attention to the Catholic faith, Eijk said what particularly struck him was how well informed these young people were on Church doctrine prior to asking for the sacraments.

“The only thing, of course, is that you have to introduce them into the community of faith,” he said. “But nevertheless they know much of their faith and these young people are inclined to accept and embrace the whole doctrine of the Catholic Church.”

Noting the declining number of Catholic parents baptizing their children in the Netherlands, Eijk said the Church is “much smaller,” particularly in light of the country’s growing population, but the prelate said he is not overly concerned because of the great faith he witnesses among new Catholics.

“It will be a ‘creative minority’ as Benedict XIV used to say,” he added. “Of course, this is a beautiful expression from Alfred Toynbee, the famous English philosopher of history.”

Toynbee concluded in his “Study of History,” which analyzed 20 world civilizations, that the rise of cultures is a result of smaller groups of people who responded to the challenges of their times.

“I think by forming a group, a small group, of strong believers in Christ, followers and Christ, we will be able to Christianize culture once again,” Eijk told EWTN News.

“We now live in a culture of expressive individualism,” he continued. “Every individual is in his own boat, determines his own philosophy of life, religion, and set of ethical values, but this culture won’t last forever.” 

To foster the faith of the people who belong to the Diocese of Utrecht, Eijk said a variety of formation programs are available to Catholics and particularly for couples preparing for the sacrament of marriage.

“We explain theology of the body, we teach couples also to pray because they don’t know how to pray and it’s really important,” he said. “We also talk about the doctrine of the Church concerning contraception, natural family planning.”

After introducing the courses for couples a few years ago, the cardinal archbishop said several participants shared positive feedback. 

“Mostly they say, ‘Oh, isn’t that beautiful! We had never heard this before,’ and that makes it clear to me that we have to transmit the truth with courage and without ambiguity,” he said.

While Eijk said the new young people coming to Church are not big in numbers, “they’re strong believers” who are the future.

“We see that there is more openness than there was, let’s say, when I started as a parish priest, an assistant parish priest 40 years ago,” he shared. 

“I always saw decline in the Church and now in the last years of my career I see a certain modest revitalization of the Church; modest, but certain,” he said.

Lima Newsroom, May 30, 2025 / 16:53 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV encouraged the Anabaptist (Mennonite) movement to live with love the call to Christian unity and the mandate to serve others.

The Holy Father made the statement in published May 29 by the Vatican and sent to participants commemorating the 500th anniversary of the Anabaptist movement in Zurich, Switzerland.

At the beginning of his message, Pope Leo emphasized that “by receiving the Lord’s peace and accepting his call, which includes being open to the gifts of the Holy Spirit, all the followers of Jesus can immerse themselves in the radical newness of Christian faith and life. Indeed, such a desire for renewal characterizes the Anabaptist movement itself.”

“The motto chosen for your celebration, ‘The Courage to Love,’ reminds us, above all, of the need for Catholics and Mennonites to make every effort to live out the commandment of love, the call to Christian unity, and the mandate to serve others,” Leo XIV emphasized.

Likewise, the pontiff’s text continues, the motto “points to the need for honesty and kindness in reflecting on our common history, which includes painful wounds and narratives that affect Catholic-Mennonite relationships and perceptions up to the present day.”

“How important, then, is that purification of memories and common re-reading of history that can enable us to heal past wounds and build a new future through the ‘courage to love,’” he pointed out.

“What is more, only in such a way can theological and pastoral dialogue bear fruit, fruit that will last. This is certainly no easy task! Yet, it was precisely at particular moments of trial that Christ revealed the Father’s will: It was when challenged by the Pharisees that he taught us that the two greatest commandments are to love God and our neighbor,” the pope said.

“It was on the eve of his passion,” he noted, “that he spoke of the need for unity, ‘that all may be one… so that the world may believe.’ My wish for each of us, then, is that we can say with St. Augustine: ‘My entire hope is exclusively in your very great mercy. Grant what you command, and command what you will.’”

In the context of “our war-torn world,” the pope continued, “our ongoing journey of healing and of deepening fraternity has a vital role to play, for the more united Christians are the more effective will be our witness to Christ, the prince of peace, in building up a civilization of loving encounter.”

The Mennonites are an Anabaptist Christian group that originated during the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century.

Their name comes from Menno Simons, a Catholic priest who would become an important theologian of this movement.

Distinguishing features of the Mennonites are their pacifism or rejection of war, their emphasis on baptism in adulthood, and their community life in which they share goods and services and work together to maintain the community.

Vatican City, May 30, 2025 / 15:44 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV on Friday stated that authentic peace “takes shape from the ground up” when the differences and conflicts they entail “are not set aside but acknowledged, understood, and surmounted.”

Pope Leo began to members of various peace movements, whom he received May 30 at the Vatican, with the same words he greeted the faithful when he was elected on May 8: “Dear brothers and sisters, peace be with you!”

The pontiff thanked them for launching the “Arena of Peace” meeting in Verona in May 2024. The event was chaired by Pope Francis and attended by some 300 delegates representing associations and movements that participated in the event.

Among the groups and movements present in the Clementine Hall on Friday were Mediterranea Saving Humans, Libera, the Italian Network for Peace and Disarmament, Catholic Action leaders, Doctors Without Borders, and the Focolare Movement.

The Holy Father recalled that, on that occasion a year ago, Pope Francis reiterated that building peace begins by “standing alongside victims, seeing things from their point of view.”

This approach, according to Leo XIV, “is essential for disarming hearts, approaches, and mentalities, and for denouncing the injustices of a system that kills and is based on the throwaway culture.”

He particularly noted “the courageous embrace” between Israeli Maoz Inon, whose parents were killed by Hamas, and Palestinian Aziz Sarah, whose brother was killed by the Israeli army. Both were present at today’s audience.

“That gesture remains as a testimony and sign of hope,” he added. 

“The path to peace demands hearts and minds trained in concern for others and capable of perceiving the common good in today’s world,” the pope continued.

He pointed out that the path to peace involves everyone and that it “leads to the fostering of right relationships between all living beings.”

In an age like our own, “marked by speed and immediacy,” Leo XIV emphasized the need to “recover the patience required for this process to occur.”

In this context, he explained that “authentic peace takes shape from the ground up, beginning with places, communities, and local institutions, and by listening to what they have to tell us. In this way, we come to realize that peace is possible when disagreements and the conflicts they entail are not set aside but acknowledged, understood, and surmounted.” 

The pope therefore urged the peace movement members to promote dialogue with all and to maintain “the creativity and ingenuity born of a culture of peace,” with projects that simultaneously inspire hope.

The Holy Father lamented that “all too much violence exists in the world,” reiterating that, in the face of wars, terrorism, human trafficking, and widespread aggression, “our children and young people need to be able to experience the culture of life, dialogue, and mutual respect.”

“Above all,” the pontiff continued, they need the witness of men and women “who embody a different and nonviolent way of living.” He therefore noted that victims who reject revenge become “the most credible agents of nonviolent peacebuilding processes.”

“Nonviolence, as a method and a style, must distinguish our decisions, our relationships, and our actions,” he added.

He also proposed the Gospel and the Church’s social doctrine as the “constant source of support for Christians in this effort” and also as a “compass for everyone.”

“Because it is, in fact, a task entrusted to all, believers and nonbelievers, who must develop and carry it out through reflection and practice inspired by the dignity of the person and the common good,” Pope Leo emphasized.

In this way, he emphasized that peace rests in the hands of all institutions and therefore invited them to be present “within history as a leaven of unity, communion, and fraternity.”

“Fraternity needs to be recovered, loved, experienced, proclaimed, and witnessed,” the pontiff emphasized before encouraging members of the peace movements to act “with patient perseverance.”

Vatican City, May 30, 2025 / 13:38 pm (CNA).

Cardinal Willem Eijk on Friday said the Pontifical Academy for Life should give more attention to the bioethical issues linked to “gender affirming” therapies and “transgender” treatments.

The Dutch cardinal, a physician and member of the Pontifical Academy for Life, opened the third annual conference organized by the platform International Chair of Bioethics Jérôme Lejeune, taking place in Rome from May 30–31. The theme of this year’s conference is “The Splendor of Truth in Science and Bioethics.”

In an exclusive interview with EWTN Vatican Bureau Chief Andreas Thonhauser, the cardinal archbishop of Utrecht, Netherlands, said that in addition to artificial intelligence, the Church needs to come together to discuss the impact of gender-affirming treatments.    

“They are now very popular and they are now well accepted in many countries,” he said in the interview. 

“I’m glad that now in the United States, this gender discussion is a little bit pushed back and it has also had a positive influence on Western European societies,” he added.

According to Eijk, the Pontifical Academy for Life has more opportunity to talk about the Church’s teachings on the relationship between sex and gender at a time when the appeal of “gender theory” appears to be now “less strong” than it was in the past.  

“So we see that the gender discussion was very strong, you know, a few years ago,” he said. “They were almost pushing gender theory in society, culture, and also educational programs at elementary schools.” 

“Now there is a lot of resistance and you can see that many people are now wondering should we do that with our young people?” he added. “So at least, you know, the question is coming up, is it right to do so?”

Although Eijk expressed dismay that “dualistic philosophies” — which fundamentally divide the mind and body as opposing forces — have more influence on scientific discourse and medical practice, he believes the Church can still speak about the intrinsic value of the human person as God’s creation that should be respected.  

“According to our Catholic view of man, biological sex is an intrinsic part of the dimension of the human being,” he said. “Transmitting the truth with regard to biological sex and relationship between gender and biological sex is an element of creation and it’s something that you’d respect.”

Though the cardinal noted that many people are inclined to view the body as an “exigent object” that you can use to express yourself or adapt to your taste, he said that a Church that is united in teaching can be very helpful for Catholic faithful who want to uphold the dignity of human life.   

“And when we proclaim this truth in an unambiguous way, in a clear way, I think that people will not be confused anymore but can start to rethink about the basic truths of life and especially basic truths concerning Christ and Christian morality,” he shared.

Earlier this week, , a bioethicist with a medical degree, as the new president of the Pontifical Academy for Life succeeding Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia. Pegoraro has served as the Vatican academy’s chancellor since September 2011.