Pope Leo XIV prayed that the Lunar Year celebrations may “strengthen family ties” and “bring peace to homes and society.”
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 inFeatures
Behind the scenes of Pope Leo XIV’s election
America’s senior Vatican correspondent chronicles the moments leading to the first American pope.
Posted inVatican Dispatch
Vatican holds firm after SSPX bishops’ ordination threats
In a highly significant move aimed at overcoming the more than 55-year division between the Priestly Society of St. Pius X and the Holy See, the prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, proposed “a specifically theological dialogue path, with a very precise methodology” to the SSPX to discuss “issues that have not yet been sufficiently clarified” between them.
Posted inVatican Dispatch
‘War is back in vogue,’ Pope Leo warns in major foreign policy speech
“War is back in vogue, and a zeal for war is spreading,” Pope Leo XIV said in a forceful address on Jan. 9 to ambassadors from the 184 countries that have full diplomatic relations with the Holy See.
Posted inVatican Dispatch
Pope Leo says he will hold consistories with the College of Cardinals every year
Leo XIV clearly does not intend to go it alone as pope.
Posted inVatican Dispatch
Pope Leo in Christmas address to Vatican officials asks: ‘Is it possible to be friends in the Roman Curia?’
Mindful that Pope Francis had often used the traditional pre-Christmas address to the Roman Curia to deliver some hard messages, Vatican officials had waited in expectation to see what Pope Leo would say.
Posted inVatican Dispatch
Pope Leo appoints new archbishop of Westminster, marking the end of an era in England
Pope Leo XIV has appointed Bishop Richard Moth of Arundel and Brighton, who was born in Zambia and came to the United Kingdom at the age of 2, as the 12th archbishop of Westminster and leader of the Catholic Church of England and Wales.
Posted inVatican Dispatch
Pope Leo picks Chicago-born Ronald Hicks to follow Dolan in New York
In naming Bishop Hicks for this high-profile post, Pope Leo chose a man whom he already knew; they met in 2024 when the then-Cardinal Robert Prevost gave a talk at a parish in the Joliet diocese.
Posted inVatican Dispatch
UPDATED: Pope Leo meets Ukraine’s Zelensky as European leaders discuss controversial U.S. peace plan
Pope Leo and President Volodymyr Zelensky met at a particularly delicate moment in the international effort to arrive at a peace plan that can be accepted by both Ukraine and Russia.
Posted inVatican Dispatch
Vatican report says no to ordaining women deacons—for now
“The purely historical perspective does not allow us to arrive at any definitive certainty,” a Vatican report concluded. “In the final analysis, the question must be decided on the doctrinal level.”