When the 8:21 a.m. train left Rome’s Termini Station to Castel Gandolfo July 12, people packed like sardines into the regional cars. While two or three passengers got off at stations along the way, most disembarked at Castel Gandolfo and headed up the hill to see Pope Leo XIV during the Sunday Angelus prayer —…
During his recent visit to Africa, Pope Leo XIV was encouraging to a continent where religion, family and community are still vital in the lives of people. But he was also challenging, especially to the ruling elites whose corruption and infighting are keeping the continent from reaching its true potential. Much media attention has focused…
One year in, Pope Leo XIV’s papacy has been rooted in truth, unity and love — the distinct gifts of his religious order, the Order of St. Augustine — making him a shepherd who leads with a blend of bridge-building and truth-telling, according to those who know him well and from afar. A panel made up of a…
Pope Leo XIV’s recent in-flight answer to a question about blessing same-sex couples exhibited a preference for not exacerbating divisions within the church over pushing the limits on polarizing issues. His answer, however, did not occur in isolation, not on the plane and certainly not in the context of other pronouncements over the first year of…
Nearly a year after the conclave that elected Pope Leo XIV, two deeply sourced books offer competing portraits of the context and maneuvering behind the first U.S.-born pope’s election. Popes, Dollars and Wars, by renowned Italian journalist Massimo Franco, traces how the church in the United States, long treated in Rome as a periphery of the…
Antonio Joaquim was 67-years-old when his family cast him out of his home for refusing to seek a “kimbanda,” a traditional healer-diviner figure prevalent in Angolan society, to treat his son who had fallen ill. After his son died, Joaquim was saddled with blame and accused of possessing an evil spirit that led to his son’s…
