The SSPX ordained four new bishops without a papal mandate in Switzerland, triggering automatic excommunication for all six bishops involved.
Gerard O’Connell
Gerard O’Connell is America’s senior Vatican correspondent and author of The Election of Pope Francis: An Inside Story of the Conclave That Changed History. He has been covering the Vatican since 1985.
Posted inVatican Dispatch
Pope Leo appoints Italian sister to top Vatican post
Pope Leo XIV has appointed Sister Alessandra Smerilli as prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, making her the first woman to head this major Vatican office.
Posted inVatican Dispatch
Pope Leo makes final appeal to SSPX before schismatic ordination of bishops: ‘Please turn back!’
Pope Leo made a last-minute appeal to the SSPX to “turn back” from illicitly ordaining bishops, saying, “to tear the seamless garment of Christ is a sin of extreme gravity.”
Posted inVatican Dispatch
Pope Leo urges 35 new metropolitan archbishops to be ‘apostles and builders of unity’
Pope Leo XVI placed the pallium on the shoulders of 35 new metropolitan archbishops appointed over the last year during Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica on June 29, the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul.
Posted inVatican Dispatch
Pope Leo closes consistory with appeal for peace, continued emphasis on synodality
“We must not resign ourselves to violence. God continues to open paths of reconciliation and peace throughout history. We have a responsibility to walk these paths with courage and to help the world recognize them.”
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Pope Leo issues challenge to cardinals gathered in Rome: ‘Learn synodality by practicing it’
Leo also surprised the cardinals by telling them, “I wish to ask you for your help.”
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Pope Leo: War is ‘fed more easily’ than the hungry
“The world today could live without hunger,” but “conflicts are ‘fed’ more easily than people are nourished,” Pope Leo XIV said when he visited the United Nations World Food Program.
Posted inVatican Dispatch
Pope Leo ends visit to Spain with a call to repent
Pope Leo XIV concluded his weeklong visit to Spain with a mighty denunciation of those who traffic or exploit migrants, shouting, “Stop! Repent!”
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‘Human dignity has no passport’: Pope Leo visits Gran Canaria
“We cannot grow accustomed to counting the dead. Human dignity has no passport and does not lose its value when crossing a border,” Pope Leo declared in a major speech on migration.
Posted inVatican Dispatch
Pope Leo XIV honors Antoni Gaudí and blesses the Sagrada Familia’s final tower
This high moment of the pope’s visit took place in Barcelona, in the presence of the monarchs of this majority Catholic country.