Catholic News
- 'Lay down your sword,' Pope urges during Rosary for peace (Dicastery for Communication)
During an evening prayer vigil in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Leo XIV presided at the recitation of the Rosary for peace and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. The original statue of Our Lady of Fatima was brought to Rome from Portugal for the occasion; there, in 1917, the Blessed Virgin had requested the praying of the Rosary for peace. During the prayer vigil, the Pontiff reflected on the Marian spirituality and Christ’s blessing on the peacemakers. Referring to Christ’s words to St. Peter, Pope Leo said: Lay down your sword is a message addressed to the powerful of this world, to those who guide the fate of peoples: have the courage to disarm! At the same time, it is an invitation to each one of us to recognize that no idea, faith or policy justifies killing. We must first disarm our hearts because unless we have peace within ourselves, we cannot give it to others. - Be rooted in Christ and exemplars of synodality, Pope tells consecrated religious (Dicastery for Communication (Italian))
Pope Leo XIV met with thousands of participants in the Jubilee of Consecrated Life in Paul VI Audience Hall and told them, “It must always be emphasized how important it is for all of you to be rooted in Christ.” “Only in this way, in fact, will you be able to carry out your mission in a fruitful way, living your vocation as part of the marvelous adventure of following Jesus more closely,” Pope Leo said during the October 10 audience. “United with him, and in him among yourselves, your little lights become like the tracing of a luminous path in the great plan of peace and salvation that God has for humanity.” Turning to synodality, Pope Leo also called upon religious to “remain faithful to the path that we are all taking in this direction.” He explained: Your life, the very way in which you are organized, the de facto often international and intercultural character of your institutes, in fact place you in a privileged condition to be able to live daily values such as mutual listening, participation, the sharing of opinions and abilities, and the common search for paths according to the voice of the Spirit. - Pope urges Italian dioceses to be close to workers (Dicastery for Communication)
Pope Leo XIV addressed pilgrims from the dioceses of Tuscany and other Italian regions on October 11 and urged them “to assume, as a local Church, the style of proximity, listening to the struggles and hardships of the people.” “I say this thinking above all of the worrying news regarding various sectors of the world of work,” Pope Leo explained. “It is painful to see how the economic crisis affecting many companies is forcing the dismissal of so many workers and leaving many others on temporary layoff.” “I therefore urge you to be a Church close to the world of work, compassionate and embodied, so that the proclamation of the Gospel may become a concrete presence of consolation and hope, but also a prophetic word that recalls the importance of guaranteeing work to everyone,” he added. - Papal tribute to diocesan hermits (Dicastery for Communication)
Pope Leo XIV paid tribute to the eremetic vocation in an audience with Italian hermits taking part in the Jubilee of Consecrated Life. “You, as hermits, are called to live this vocation to worship and inner prayer, proper to every believer, in an exemplary way, in order to be witnesses in the Church to the beauty of the contemplative life,” Pope Leo told the hermits during the audience, which took place on October 11 in Consistory Hall of the Apostolic Palace. “It is not an escape from the world, but a regeneration of the heart, so that it may be capable of listening, a source of the creative and fruitful action of the charity that God inspires in us,” the Pope continued. “This call to interiority and silence, to live in contact with oneself, with one’s neighbor, with creation and with God, is needed today more than ever, in a world increasingly alienated by the media and technology.” - Let prayer accompany communication, Pontiff tells dicastery employees (Dicastery for Communication (Italian))
Pope Leo XIV addressed employees of the Dicastery for Communication and their families on October 11, the date this year of their annual picnic. “Slowly I’m getting to know you,” Pope Leo said. “I know that you work with passion, to spread the Pope’s words and gestures everywhere. You do it daily, discreetly and in a hidden manner.” The Pope added, “How important it is that our communication be accompanied by prayer! I would say that this makes the difference. The world may not know it, it does not understand it, but we do, we know it and we must always try to do it: to accompany our daily work of communication with prayer.” - Pope Leo on poverty: Not just the voice of Pope Francis (News/Analysis) (CWN)
“For us Christians,” the problem of the poor leads to the very heart of our faith,” writes Pope Leo XIV in his apostolic exhortation Dilexi Te, released on October 9. In this, the first major teaching document of his pontificate, Pope Leo insists that care for the poor is an essential and obligatory aspect of the life of faith. - Your studies are for service: papal message to Pontifical Urban University (Dicastery for Communication (Italian))
In a message for the opening of the Pontifical Urban University’s academic year, Pope Leo XIV wrote that “authentic study should never be an end in itself, but rather an instrument for elevating the soul to eternal realities.” “It is a matter of not considering study a mere intellectual exercise, but a path that leads to Wisdom, in which the truth sought and the God who allows himself to be found are united,” Pope Leo wrote in his message, dated October 9 and released the following day. “The mission of every university, in fact, goes beyond the classrooms and academic curricula and is projected at the service of peoples, especially where people await words of hope and signs of charity, signs of truth and guarantees of freedom.” Founded in 1627, the Pontifical Urban University, or Urbaniana, is operated by the Dicastery for Evangelization for the education of missionaries. - The Pope understands the Church in the US, USCCB president says after audience (Vatican News)
On October 10, Pope Leo XIV received the leaders of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops: Archbishop Timothy Broglio (president), Archbishop William Lori (vice president), Father Michael Fuller (secretary general), and Father Paul Hartmann (assistant secretary general). “You feel you have an older brother walking with you—and that is a great blessing,” Archbishop Broglio, who leads the Archdiocese for the Military Services, said after the hour-long audience. “The refrain that ‘they don’t understand us over here’ doesn’t fit anymore, because he certainly does understand us.” Archbishop Broglio told Vatican News that “the bishops and the Church in the United States as a whole have always been very closely allied to the Pope, with a desire to work in unity with him.” Topics of conversation included the transmission of faith and migrants; “we talked about the challenges we face when people align themselves more quickly with political positions than with the message of the Gospel,” the prelate said. - Guatemalan president, Pontiff discuss corruption, migration (Bernardo Arévalo de León (Facebook))
Pope Leo XIV received Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo on October 11. “We discussed the important role of our institutions in building a more just and supportive Guatemala,” the president said following the audience. “One of the topics highlighted during the meeting was the fight against corruption—a fundamental commitment of my government—as well as the major challenges we face in migration and the search for solutions to poverty.” “I have officially invited him to visit Guatemala,” added the president, “and I thank the Holy Father for receiving this invitation and expressing his interest in this visit.” - Vatican message to Hindus recalls Nostra Aetate, highlights peace through dialogue (Vatican Press Office)
“Hindus and Christians: Building world peace through dialogue and collaboration in the spirit of Nostra Aetate“ is the theme of Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue’s 2025 message to Hindus for the Hindu festival of Diwali (Deepavali). The dicastery’s prefect and secretary hailed Nostra Aetate, the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions, as an “historic initiative of interreligious dialogue” that “has evolved into a global project, generously supported and championed by people of diverse religious beliefs and non-beliefs alike, thereby making a significant contribution to world peace.” “During this festive season, we invite you to join us in reflecting on how Christians and Hindus, together with people of all faiths and goodwill, can strengthen our shared efforts for peace through dialogue and collaboration in the spirit of Nostra Aetate,” added the dicastery’s prefect (Cardinal George Jacob Koovakad) and secretary (Msgr. Indunil Janakaratne Kodithuwakku Kankanamalage). “ In today’s world, where mistrust, polarization, tensions and divisions are on the rise, interreligious dialogue is more necessary than ever.” - Citing exhaustion, Honduran bishop resigns at 63 (La Prensa (Spanish))
Pope Leo XIV has accepted the resignation of Bishop José Antonio Canales Motiño, the first bishop of Danlí, Honduras. The 63-year-old prelate, appointed a bishop in 2017, was a strong critic of the oppression of the Church by the Ortega regime in neighboring Nicaragua. In discussing his resignation, Bishop Canales cited “severe physical and mental exhaustion.” In the Diocese of Danlí, 19 priests minister to 422,000 Catholics in 11 parishes. - Head of Germany's foreign intelligence service named ambassador to Holy See (Vatican Press Office)
Pope Leo XIV received Bruno Kahl, Germany’s new ambassador to the Holy See, on October 11. Kahl does not have the typical diplomatic background of an ambassador to the Holy See. Instead, for the last nine years he has been director of the Bundesnachrichtendienst, or Foreign Intelligence Service: the German equivalent of the CIA. - Brief papal letter to bishops accompanies Dilexi Te (Vatican Press Office)
Pope Leo XIV penned a brief handwritten letter in English (image) to the world’s bishops to accompany Dilexi Te, his first apostolic exhortation (CWN analysis). “It is with great joy that I write to you, following a practice begun by Pope Francis more than ten years ago, associating the entire Episcopal College at important moments of Papal Magisterium,” Pope Leo wrote. “May ‘Dilexi te’ help the Church to serve the poor and help bring the poor to Christ.” - Sostituto calls for 'healthy decentralization' in the Church (Vatican News (Portuguese))
Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra called for “healthy decentralization” within the Church as he reflected on synodality and subsidiarity in a lecture to canon lawyers in London. Vatican News reported that Archbishop Peña Parra spoke of a need “to find a balance between two opposing risks: on the one hand, a return to a hierarchical and top-down approach that stifles the role of the faithful; on the other, a chaotic system that threatens the unity and mission of the Church.” As the Sostituto (officially, the Substitute for General Affairs of the Secretariat of State), Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra coordinates the internal affairs of the Roman Curia and reports to Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Secretary of State. - God is 'the fullness and meaning of our lives,' Pope preaches at Jubilee of Consecrated Life (Dicastery for Communication)
Pope Leo XIV celebrated a rare Thursday Mass in St. Peter’s Square yesterday for the Jubilee of Consecrated Life (video). “You have come to entrust your lives to the same mercy to which, through your religious profession, you once committed yourselves to bear witness, because living out your vows means abandoning yourselves like children into the arms of the Father,” Pope Leo preached. God is “the fullness and meaning of our lives,” the Pope continued. “For you—for us—the Lord is everything ... The Lord, to whom you have given everything, has rewarded you with such beauty and richness, and I would like to urge you to treasure and cultivate what you have received.” - The Church 'denounces the false impartiality of the market,' Cardinal Czerny says at press conference (CWN)
At yesterday’s Vatican press conference for the publication of Pope Leo XIV’s apostolic exhortation Dilexi Te (video), Cardinal Michael Czerny, SJ, emphasized that “recent Church teaching understands that poverty results from structures of sin. Selfishness and indifference solidify in economic and cultural systems.” - Pope encourages US Hispanic ministry leaders to accompany the poor and the stranger (Vatican News)
Addressing over 100 Hispanic ministry leaders from the US, Pope Leo XIV said that “you have a very great task in your hands—to accompany people who truly, deeply need a sign that God never abandons anyone: the least, the poorest, the stranger, everyone.” “You, through the service you offer in ministry, are clearly [offering] that testimony that is so important—perhaps especially in the United States, but also throughout the world, a world that suffers so much from war, violence, and hatred,” the Pope added in his extemporaneous remarks, delivered in Spanish on the evening of October 7 in the San Damaso courtyard of the Apostolic Palace. - El Paso bishop shares migrants' letters with Pontiff (CNS)
Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso said that Pope Leo XIV had tears in his eyes as he read migrants’ letters during an October 8 audience. Bishop Seitz, who chairs the US bishops’ Committee on Migration, said that Pope Leo was “very affirming of the work that we are doing in the United States, especially our work directly with immigrants.” Offering strong criticism of the Trump administration’s immigration policies, Bishop Seitz said that “the vast majority of those who are being detained today are not criminals by any reasonable definition of that word, but they are being treated worse than we ought to treat criminals, and it is just so sad to see our nation treating our brothers and sisters in this way—sad, and you know, so wrong.” - USCCB's pro-life chairman criticizes FDA approval of generic abortion drug (USCCB)
The chairman of the US bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities criticized the Food and Drug Administration for approving a generic version of the abortion drug mifepristone. “It is jarring and contradictory that, at the same time that the Food and Drug Administration is conducting a much-needed review of the supposed safety of the abortion pill for women, it is nonetheless approving a new generic for this deadly drug,” said Bishop Daniel Thomas of Toledo, Ohio. - Vatican envoy tells OSCE: Church will push to end death penalty (Vatican News)
At a Warsaw meeting of the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the Vatican’s delegate, Msgr. Lucas Marabese, underlined the commitment of the Catholic Church to defending the dignity of human life. Msgr. Marabese said that the death penalty is “an attack on the sacredness and dignity of the person.” For that reason, he told the OSCE delegates, the Holy See “will continue to press with determination for its abolition worldwide.” - More...