Catholic News
- Pope pays tribute to St. Francis of Assisi on 800th anniversary of his death (CWN)
During his October 4 Sunday Angelus address (video), Pope Leo XIV reflected on the parable of the wicked husbandmen (Matthew 21:33-43) and paid tribute to St. Francis of Assisi. - Guard your hearts and support one another, Pope preaches to Vatican Gendarmerie Corps (CWN)
Pope Leo XIV celebrated Mass for the members of the Vatican City State’s Gendarmerie Corps and encouraged them to guard their hearts and take care of one another. - Preserve unity with the Pope and the apostolic faith, Pope tells Pontifical Teutonic College (CWN)
Pope Leo XIV received members of the Pontifical Teutonic College of Santa Maria in Campo Santo as it marked its 150th anniversary and urged its rector, priests, and associated faithful to preserve “closeness and unity with the Successor of Peter and with the faith of the apostles which he proclaims.” - Pope renews call for Rosary for peace in October (CWN)
At the conclusion of his Sunday Angelus address on October 4, Pope Leo XIV renewed his request to pray the Rosary for peace in October, the month dedicated to the Holy Rosary. - Pope requests prayers for extraordinary Amoris Laetitia meeting (CWN)
Pope Leo XIV requested prayers for the upcoming assembly on the tenth anniversary of Amoris Laetitia. - Montenegro's president invites Pontiff to visit nation (CWN)
Pope Leo XIV received President Jakov Milatović of Montenegro in an October 3 audience. - Cardinal Gambetti transferred from St. Peter's Basilica to Italian archdiocese (Vatican Press Office)
In an unprecedented move, Pope Leo XIV transferred Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, O.F.M. Conv., Archpriest of St. Peter’s Basilica and vicar general of the Vatican City State, to the Archdiocese of Chieti-Vasto. Cardinal Gambetti will now lead a diocese of 270,000 Catholics. Appointment as Archpriest of St. Peter’s Basilica is typically a capstone, and Cardinal Gambetti’s predecessors as archpriest ended their tenure by retirement, death in office, or election to the papacy. Cardinal Gambetti, 60, was custos general of the General Custody of the Sacred Convent of Saint Francis in Assisi from 2013 to 2021. Pope Francis named him a cardinal in 2020 and transferred him to St. Peter’s Basilica in 2021. His tenure there has been marked by controversy. Pope Leo has not yet named a new archpriest. - Indigenous catechists crucial in Amazon River diocese, bishop tells Pope Leo (Vatican News (Portuguese))
Pope Leo XIV received Bishop Raimundo Vanthuy Neto of São Gabriel da Cachoeira—a Brazilian diocese about the size of the nation of Italy—on October 3. Bishop Neto spoke for 20 minutes with the Pontiff about the diocese, where “24 different indigenous ethnic groups coexist and 18 distinct languages are spoken,” according to Vatican News. “As the diocese is essentially river-based, travel depends on boats and canoes, requiring missionaries and bishops to undertake long journeys to navigate past waterfalls and reach the most remote communities.” Bishop Neto told Pope Leo that “the process of evangelization and formation relies heavily on the pivotal role of indigenous catechists,” according to the report. “To strengthen faith and leadership within the communities, extended training sessions are held, sometimes lasting up to 15 consecutive days, bringing together dozens of indigenous people from various regions.” - 1,300 priests, religious from Indonesian island serve as missionaries (Fides)
A thousand priests and 300 religious sisters from the Indonesian island of Flores have left their native land to serve as missionaries abroad, a bishop told the Fides News Agency. Bishop Yohanes Hans Monteiro of Larantuka also described the situation on the island six weeks after a severe earthquake. “Some of the faithful had already been forced to flee to another place and are internally displaced,” he said. “I am concerned about my people who are living in precarious conditions in this region.” - USCCB posts brief videos on politics, voting (CWN)
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops posted two brief videos on its website on October 1: “The Call to Put Faith Before Politics“ and “Forming Our Consciences and Voting.” - Vatican newspaper sounds alarm about drought in Honduras (CWN)
Over 700,000 people are in need of humanitarian assistance in Honduras because of severe drought, the Vatican newspaper reported in the most prominent front-page article in its October 3 edition. - Press conference offers overview of extraordinary meeting on Amoris Laetitia (CWN)
Three speakers at a Vatican press conference (video) discussed the upcoming extraordinary meeting on the tenth anniversary of Amoris Laetitia. - Pope Leo: In the AI age, the Church needs artists (CWN)
Pope Leo XIV told a gathering of artists and curators that “the Church looks upon you with esteem, gratitude and hope; that she needs you, and that she wishes to walk alongside you, so that together we may safeguard the grandeur of humanity entrusted to us.” - Children join Pope Leo in reciting Rosary for peace (CWN)
1,300 people, including 700 children, joined Pope Leo XIV at the Lourdes Grotto in the Vatican Gardens to recite the Rosary for peace (video). - Vatican diplomat: AI should not decide our future (Holy See Mission)
In a talk at an event devoted to Magnifica Humanitas, Pope Leo’s encyclical on safeguarding the human person in the time of artificial intelligence, a Vatican diplomat said that “technology will definitely shape our future. But it should not decide what kind of future it is.” “That choice remains ours,” Archbishop Ettore Balestrero, apostolic nuncio and Permanent Observer to the United Nations and other international organizations in Geneva, Switzerland, said on October 2. “The landscape the encyclical portrays compels us, as international community, to take up our part of the work and to take actions, keeping the dignity of the person at the core and the integral development of each individual as the pole star.” - EU official discusses Ukraine war, Middle East with Pontiff (@kajakallas)
Pope Leo XIV received Kaja Kallas, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and the European Commission’s vice president, in an October 2 audience. “We discussed Russia’s war against Ukraine and the need for a just and lasting peace, the situation in the Middle East and the urgent humanitarian needs, as well as the growing danger posed by societal polarization and AI,” Kallas wrote in a social media post. “I thanked His Holiness for his unwavering commitment to international law, multilateralism and his clear voice in defense of human dignity.” - Cardinal Parolin: Elderly, young suffered from response to COVID (Holy See Mission)
Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Secretary of State of His Holiness, said that “COVID-19 both exposed and aggravated social fragmentation, at times with the result that older persons were abandoned and many young people suffered from isolation and loneliness, inhibiting their personal and affective development.” “Therefore, greater attention should be given to mental health, particularly that of the youth, while accompanying people in discovering that life has value, that each of us is loved, awaited and called to a task in the world,” Cardinal Parolin said at a recent UN meeting on pandemics. Cardinal Parolin reiterated the Holy See’s position that “universal health coverage is a moral imperative, which is rooted in the principle of the ‘equality of all in dignity and rights’ and which reflects our increasing interdependence and interconnectedness.” - Tennessee Christian leaders call for commutation of death sentence following botched execution (The Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee)
Tennessee’s Catholic bishops, joined by Episcopal Church and Lutheran counterparts, called on Gov. Bill Lee to commute the death sentence of a convicted murderer who survived a botched execution. The bishops said in an earlier statement that “the Church, shepherded by Pope Leo XIV, has restated its opposition to the death penalty as an attack on human dignity and unnecessary to protect society while still punishing those convicted of horrible crimes.” - Roman Curia considering Universal Safeguarding Framework (Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors)
The president of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors told commission members that curial dicasteries are considering a Universal Safeguarding Framework proposed by the commission earlier this year. “As agreed during our last Assembly, together with our Secretary I submitted the Universal Safeguarding Framework (USF) to the Holy Father for his consideration,” Archbishop Thibault Verny of Chambéry, France, said at the commission’s autumn plenary assembly, which concluded yesterday. “He received it very favorably and informed us that the text is now being examined by the competent bodies of the Roman Curia.” - Catholic Primate, Anglican leader plead for dialogue amid renewed unrest in Northern Ireland (OSV News)
Warning that “too much is at stake,” the Primate of All Ireland and his Anglican counterpart called for reconciliation in North Ireland amid renewed unrest. “We share the conviction that the greatest commandment, and the greatest witness anyone can give to the Gospel in our world today, is in love of God and love of neighbor,” Archbishop Eamon Martin of Armagh and Rt. Rev. John McDowell said in a joint statement. “We are willing to do all that we are asked to guide the feet of all, in the name, and after the example of Jesus, on the way of peace, and the building up of a better future for all.” - More...