Catholic News

• Ecumenical Patriarchate: Pope Leo to visit Turkey in November (Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America)
  The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople has announced that Pope Leo XIV will visit Nicaea in November to commemorate the 1700th anniversary of the first ecumenical council there. The announcement, unconfirmed by the Vatican, followed a May 19 meeting between Pope Leo and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, who holds a primacy of honor among the Orthodox churches. The Pope and the Ecumenical Patriarch “agreed to meet together in Nicaea toward the end of November, near the Feast of Saint Andrew, in order to commemorate together the 1,700th anniversary,” according to the announcement. “During this historic visit, Pope Leo may also visit the headquarters of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, at the Phanar in Constantinople.” Both Nicaea and the Phanar are located in Turkey. The nation of 84.1 million (map) is 98% Muslim.
• Trump says Vatican agreed to host Ukraine peace talks (CNS)
  President Donald Trump has revealed that Pope Leo volunteered to host Ukraine peace talks at the Vatican. Although the Vatican has not officially confirmed that report, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Secretary of State, said last week that “we are willing to offer good offices to facilitate meetings.” Trump mentioned the possibility of talks at the Vatican in an exchange with reporters on May 19, during which he discussed a lengthy phone conversation with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and the prospects for a ceasefire in Ukraine.
• Cardinal Parolin in New York: Holy See reaffirms 'unwavering support' for UN's mission (Holy See Mission)
  Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Secretary of State of His Holiness, traveled to New York to speak at a UN reception in honor of the election of Pope Leo XIV. “Pope Leo, in his first days as the Successor of Peter, has expressed his deep commitment to building bridges, underscoring the need to meet, dialogue and negotiate,” Cardinal Parolin said during the May 19 reception, held the day after the Pope’s installation Mass. “The Holy See reaffirms its unwavering support for the mission of the United Nations to be a forum where States engage in dialogue, bringing forth the voices of their peoples, and where solutions to humanity’s greatest challenges are forged.” “The Holy See, under [Pope Leo’s] leadership, pledges to work alongside you, the representatives of the nations, to promote human dignity, protect the vulnerable, and build bridges where mistrust might otherwise prevail,” Cardinal Parolin added. “The Holy See, committed to truth and justice, will continue to offer its moral voice in defense of the poor and those in need, and in the pursuit of peace and integral human development.”
• Vance conveyed invitation for Pope to visit White House (CNA)
  During his visit with Pope Leo XIV on May 18, Vice President J. D. Vance hand-delivered a letter to the Pontiff from President Donald Trump, inviting the Pope to visit the White House. The Pope acknowledged the letter with thanks but did not give an immediate response.
• Pontiff prays at basilica of St. Paul (Vatican News)
  Pope Leo XIV traveled across Rome on May 20 to the basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, to pray at the tomb of the apostle. In remarks during a brief prayer service at the basilica, the Pope reflected on the life of St. Paul and his remarkable conversion. He cited the words of St. Augustine: “How can we choose, unless we have first been chosen? We cannot love, unless someone has loved us first.”
• Emphasizing love and unity, Leo XIV installed as 267th Pope (CWN)
  Pope Leo XIV received the papal pallium and the fisherman’s ring on May 18 at the Mass for the beginning of his Petrine ministry (booklet, video), ten days after his surprise election by the members of the College of Cardinals on the conclave’s second day.
• Recalling suffering Ukrainian children, Zelensky gives Leo an icon of Madonna and Child (@ZelenskyyUa)
  In the second of two audiences held on the day of his installation Mass, Pope Francis received Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. “Today, we presented Pope Leo XIV with a special icon—the Holy Mother with the Infant, painted on a fragment of a crate used to store heavy artillery munitions, brought from near Izyum,” tweeted Zelensky. “This icon speaks of our children. Of those who have suffered from the war, who were deliberately abducted and deported by Russia, and who are very much awaited at home—in Ukraine.”
• New Pope, who has visited China, will continue Pope Francis's approach, Cardinal Chow believes (Fides)
  The bishop of Hong Kong said in an interview that the new Pope “has visited China on several occasions and has learned about its culture and reality.” “And he is said to share Pope Francis’ approach to China, which includes communication and dialogue,” said Cardinal Stephen Chow Sau-yan, SJ. He recounted that he gave a small statue of Our Lady of Sheshan to the new Pope, imploring him not to forget the Church in China and the Chinese people. He nodded his head to indicate that he will not forget the Church and the Chinese people. I believe he will gladly continue the direction followed by Pope Francis. In 2018, the Vatican announced a provisional agreement between the Holy See and China on the appointment of bishop. That agreement, whose provisions have never been made public, was most recently renewed in 2024, for a four-year period.
• New Pope makes surprise visit to old dicastery (Vatican News)
  On May 20, Pope Leo XIV made a surprise visit to the Dicastery for Bishops, where he served as prefect before his election as Supreme Pontiff. After greeting the staff, the Pope celebrated Mass in the chapel of the dicastery.
• Leo has 'great desire' to visit Argentina, foreign minister says after audience (La Nación)
  Following a May 19 audience with Pope Leo XIV, Argentina’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, International Trade and Worship said that the new Pope has a “great desire” to visit the South American nation. “It was a very warm audience,” Gerardo Werthein told Elisabetta Piqué, a journalist close to the late Pope Francis. Leo is “a very pleasant person, and we are going to work closely to strengthen and strengthen the bilateral relationship,” including a prospective visit to the Vatican by President Javier Milei.
• Bishops applaud House efforts to defund abortion, 'gender transition' (USCCB)
  Stating that “Americans should not be forced to subsidize abortions and ‘gender transition’ services with their tax dollars,” the chairmen of two US bishops’ committees welcomed efforts in the House of Representatives to defund Planned Parenthood. “For decades, Planned Parenthood has received government money and offered low-income women one terrible option: to end the lives of their babies,” said Bishop Daniel Thomas, chairman of the Committee on Pro-Life Activities, and Bishop Robert Barron, chairman of the Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life, and Youth. “More recently, they have used the same taxpayer funds to expand their destructive offerings, by promoting gender ideology and providing puberty blockers and hormones to minors, turning them into lifelong patients in the process.” The prelates added, “We encourage greater support for authentic, life-affirming health care providers that serve mothers and their children in need.”
• Pope Leo 'has the mentality of a mathematician' and 'knows how to govern,' confrère says (L'Osservatore Romano (Italian))
  In an interview with the Vatican newspaper, Bishop Luis Marín de San Martín, OSA, one of two undersecretaries of the General Secretariat of the Synod, shared his memories of the new Pope, with whom he worked at the Augustinian general curia beginning in 2008. (The future Pope was the Augustinian prior general from 2001 to 2013.) The new Pope “is a man with very clear ideas,” said Bishop Marín. “He has the mentality of a mathematician and a canonist. He is extremely orderly, tireless in his work, thoughtful. He never makes decisions lightly. He meditates, reflects, and prays. He is a person who, faithful to the Augustinian style, always works in a team.” The prelate added: He is a man who knows how to listen, he listens a lot and listens to different opinions. This does not mean that he agrees with all of them, but he listens to them and dialogues. He knows how to govern. He makes decisions, but always in a dialogical style. Turning to the topic of sexual abuse, Bishop Marín said that “he has always been by the victims’ side. Always. And he has scrupulously respected all the protocols. His way of proceeding has been irreproachable. He was one of the few who has always remained by the victims’ side.”
• Emotional meeting between Pontiff, faithful from his former Peruvian diocese (Andina)
  
• Leo calls on Church to be 'a little leaven' of unity and love, Vatican spokesman writes (Vatican News)
  Reflecting on Pope Leo’s installation Mass homily, a leading Vatican spokesman emphasized that the new Pontiff called upon the Church to be a “a sign of unity and communion, which becomes a leaven for a reconciled world.” “At the inauguration of his pontificate, Pope Leo invites us to cast our gaze far, to go forth to confront the questions, the restlessness, and the challenges of today,” said Andrea Tornielli, editorial director of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication.
• Pope to diplomats: Church serves peace, justice, and truth (CNS)
  Speaking on May 16 to the ambassadors accredited to the Vatican, Pope Leo XVI said that the diplomatic work of the Holy See is designed to promote peace, justice, and truth. “The church can never be exempted from speaking the truth about humanity and the world, resorting whenever necessary to blunt language that may initially create misunderstanding,” the Pope said. He explained that the Church’s diplomacy is “inspired by a pastoral outreach that leads it not to seek privileges but to strengthen its evangelical mission at the service of humanity.” In his first encounter with the diplomatic corps, the Pope emphasized the quest for peace, the importance of religious liberty, and “the challenges of our time, such as migration, the ethical use of artificial intelligence and the protection of our beloved planet Earth.” The Pontiff said that civil governments have the responsibility to promote the common good, and added: “This can be achieved above all by investing in the family, founded upon the stable union between a man and a woman.”
• The Church's social doctrine 'does not claim to possess a monopoly on truth,' Pope tells Vatican conference (Vatican Press Office)
  Pope Leo XIV received members of the Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice Foundation, named after Pope St. John Paul II’s 1991 social encyclical, as part of its conference on Catholic social thought and polarization. The Pontiff said that “the Church’s social doctrine, with its specific anthropological approach, seeks to encourage genuine engagement with social issues. It does not claim to possess a monopoly on truth, either in its analysis of problems or its proposal of concrete solutions.” “Where social questions are concerned, knowing how best to approach them is more important than providing immediate responses to why things happen or how to deal with them,” he continued, explaining: “Doctrine” can be a synonym of “science,” “discipline” and “knowledge.” Understood in this way, doctrine appears as the product of research, and hence of hypotheses, discussions, progress and setbacks, all aimed at conveying a reliable, organized and systematic body of knowledge about a given issue. Consequently, a doctrine is not the same as an opinion, but is rather a common, collective and even multidisciplinary pursuit of truth.
• Do not forgot those who suffer from war, Pope Leo tells crowd in St. Peter's Square (Vatican Press Office)
  At the conclusion of the Mass for the beginning of his Petrine ministry, Pope Leo XIV delivered his Sunday Regina Caeli address. After thanking the crowd in St. Peter’s Square for attending the Mass, Pope Leo said that “we cannot forget our brothers and sisters who are suffering because of war.” “In Gaza, the surviving children, families and elderly are reduced to starvation,” he said. “In Myanmar, new hostilities have cut short innocent young lives. Finally, war-torn Ukraine awaits negotiations for a just and lasting peace.” He concluded: Therefore, as we entrust to Mary the service of the Bishop of Rome, Pastor of the universal Church, let us, from the “Barque of Peter,” look to her, Star of the Sea, Our Lady of Good Counsel, as a sign of hope. We implore her intercession for the gift of peace, for support and comfort for those who suffer, and for the grace for all of us to be witnesses to the Risen Lord.
• Vance, Rubio meet with Pope Leo (Vatican Press Office)
  US Vice President J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Pope Leo XIV in a private audience on May 19. The two American political leaders had been in attendance the previous day at the new Pontiff’s Mass for the inauguration of his pontificate. Vance had met with Pope Francis—who had criticized his views on immigration—on Easter Sunday, just before the Pope’s death. The May 19 meeting included “an exchange of views on some current international issues,” the Vatican reported, “during which hope was expressed that humanitarian law and international law be respected in areas of conflict and that there be a negotiated solution between the parties involved.”
• India's Cardinal Gracias urges lasting peace accord with Pakistan (Vatican News)
  Cardinal Oswald Gracias, the retired Archbishop of Mumbai, has issued a public appeal for a secure peace agreement between India and Pakistan, to build on a ceasefire agreement that brought a halt to exchanges of artillery fire and drone strikes between the two nuclear powers.. “It is time to put an end to ancient resentments,” the cardinal said, calling in particular for a settlement of claims to the disputed province of Kashmir. “We hope for a full and definitive agreement, which would be important not only for India and Pakistan but for peace in the world.”
• Pope calls for ecumenical unity based on shared faith (Vatican Press Office)
  Pope Leo XIV met on May 19 with delegates from other faiths who had attended the Mass for the inauguration of his pontificate, and voiced his commitment to the cause of ecumenical unity—which cautioning that “unity can only be unity in faith.” The Pope told Christian delegates that “our communion is realized to the extent that we meet in the Lord Jesus.” He added: “The more faithful and obedient we are to him, the more united we are among ourselves.” The Pope also expressed his gratitude to the Jewish, Muslim, and other religious representatives who were present, saying that “each of the communities represented here brings its own contribution of wisdom, compassion and commitment to the good of humanity and the preservation of our common home.”
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