When he addressed an international congress on the pastoral care of the elderly yesterday, Pope Leo laid out the demographic premises for an honest assessment of Catholic life these days, but he didn’t quite draw out the logical pastoral consequences. Leo clearly acknowledged that rapid aging of societies is one of the key hallmarks of…
Today marks the release of the initial set of excerpts from Pope Leo XIV’s first-ever sit-down interview with a journalist, which comes in the form of the landmark new book León XIV: ciudadano del mundo, misionero del siglo XXI, meaning “Leo XIV: Citizen of the World, Missionary of the 21st Century,” released by Penguin Peru…
As September 5-7 pilgrimage of roughly 2,000 LGBTQ+ Catholics to Rome as part of the ongoing Jubilee Year, which is not formally part of the calendar of official celebrations but which nevertheless has been welcomed by some church officials, culminated with a procession of participants into St Peter’s Square for the Pope’s traditional noontime Angelus…
For the outside world, it’s perhaps Pope Leo’s pleas for cease-fires in Gaza and Ukraine that have attracted the most attention since his election just over three weeks ago. For Catholic insiders, all manner of papal acts have generated reaction, from his sartorial touches, his use of sung Latin in public prayer, and even his…
Naturally enough, journalists covering the Vatican tend to seek out figures in the system from their own countries or language groups. French speakers seek out the French, Spanish speakers the Spaniards and Latin Americans, the Italians gravitate to their paesani, and, by the same logic, Americans are drawn to fellow Americans. Thus it was that when…
Each day between now and the May 7 conclave to elect a successor to Pope Francis, John Allen is offering a profile of a different papabile, the Italian term for a man who could be pope. There’s no scientific way to identity these contenders; it’s mostly a matter of weighing reputations, positions held and influence wielded over…
Each day between now and the May 7 conclave to elect a successor to Pope Francis, John Allen is offering a profile of a different papabile, the Italian term for a man who could be pope. There’s no scientific way to identity these contenders; it’s mostly a matter of weighing reputations, positions held and influence wielded over…
Each day between now and the conclave to elect a successor to Pope Francis, on a date yet to be set, John Allen is offering a profile of a different papabile, the Italian term for a man who could be pope. There’s no scientific way to identity these contenders; it’s mostly a matter of weighing reputations, positions…
Amid the jubilation unleashed inside Syria and around the world by the fall of the Assad regime last Saturday night, one community in the country that probably isn’t in such a festive mood right now would be Syria’s Christian minority. Prior to the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War in 2011, Christians represented roughly 10%…
Letter from Rome Fans of the Roma soccer team, one of the two professional squads in the Eternal City, are in a grumpy mood these days. In part that’s because of the team’s uneven performance, but even more so because of perceived mismanagement by its American owners, Texas billionaire Dan Friedkin and his son Ryan.…