“He made clear that he wants everyone to feel welcome,” Father James Martin, S.J., said after his private audience with Pope Leo.
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 calls for stop to ‘the pandemic of arms’ after Minnesota Catholic school shooting
Speaking in English, Pope Leo XIV asked people “to plead with God to stop the pandemic of arms, large and small, which infects our world” as he prayed for “the victims of the tragic shooting during a school Mass” in Minnesota last week.
Posted inVatican Dispatch
Pope Leo warns against the ‘forced displacement of populations’ in Gaza
The pope called for “humanitarian law to be fully respected—especially the obligation to protect civilians and the prohibitions against collective punishment, the indiscriminate use of force, and the forced displacement of populations.”
Posted inVatican Dispatch
Priests and nuns in Gaza City defy Israel’s evacuation orders and vow to stay: ‘We have nowhere else to go.’
The priests and nuns who are caring for those living in the Orthodox and Catholic compounds in Gaza City will remain despite Israel’s orders to evacuate, the Greek Orthodox and Latin patriarchs of Jerusalem said in a statement issued today, Tuesday, Aug. 26.
Posted inVatican Dispatch
World’s largest Catholic aid group calls for end of ‘man-made famine and assault’ in Gaza
Caritas Internationalis, one of the largest humanitarian organizations in the world, has denounced “the siege of Gaza” by Israel, which, the group said, “has become a machinery of annihilation, sustained by impunity and the silence, or complicity, of powerful nations.”
Posted inVatican Dispatch
Pope Leo sends letter to Zelensky and prays for peace on Ukraine’s independence day
Pope Leo XIV marked the 34th anniversary of Ukraine’s independence day—Aug. 24—by sending a message to the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, and by telling pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square that he joined Ukrainians in asking the Lord “to grant peace to their martyred country.” Ukraine gained its independence from the former Soviet Union on Aug. […]
Posted inVatican Dispatch
Pope Leo sets Friday as day of prayer and fasting for peace in Ukraine and the Holy Land
The pope issued his appeal at the end of his public audience in the Vatican on Wednesday, as efforts are underway to bring a ceasefire in Gaza and broker a peace accord between Ukraine and Russia.
Posted inVatican Dispatch
Pope Francis is a hard act to follow. But Leo XIV is filling the role with remarkable ease.
Inside the new pope’s first 100 days
Posted inFaith, Vatican Dispatch
Pope Leo’s message to Gen Z: ‘You are a sign that a different world is possible’
At a Mass for the Jubilee of Youth outside Rome, Pope Leo exhorted over a million young people to be “seeds of hope” and a “sign that a different world is possible.”
Posted inFaith, Vatican Dispatch
Pope Leo appoints French archbishop to lead Vatican sex abuse commission
Pope Leo XIV named the French archbishop Thibault Verny as the new president of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors. He succeeds Cardinal Seán O’Malley, 81, the emeritus archbishop of Boston.