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.
Vatican Dispatch
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.
Posted inFaith, Vatican Dispatch
Pope Leo XIV: Western Christians must reject ‘fake news’ and help the suffering Eastern churches
Pope Leo XIV denounced the “violent conflict [that] seems to be raging in the Christian East with a diabolical intensity previously unknown” and said the Christians of the West must do more to help the Christians of the East, especially those suffering in Ukraine, Gaza and other places in the Middle East.
Posted inPolitics & Society, Vatican Dispatch
Pope Leo calls for Middle East peace after ‘heinous terrorist attack’ on church in Syria
Aware of the deep concern this new act of violence has caused among Christians in this part of the world, Pope Leo offered these words of assurance: “I say to the Christians of the Middle East: I am close to you! The whole church is close to you!”
Posted inPolitics & Society, Vatican Dispatch
Pope Leo calls for stop to the Israel-Iran war after U.S. bombs Iranian nuclear sites
“Let diplomacy silence the guns!” Pope Leo XIV told the crowd in St. Peter’s Square a few hours after the United States entered the Iran-Israel war by bombing three of Iran’s nuclear sites.