Junno Arocho Esteves

Pope Leo XIV said he is "deeply saddened" by the attack on Australian Jews at a celebration of the first day of Hanukkah. Sydney's archbishop and U.S. prelates also condemned the "horrific" shooting and offered prayers.

"From when he was a child until he became a priest and then left for Peru, he has always been somewhat the same person," said Vatican News journalist Salvatore Cernuzio.

The 63-year-old Austrian priest, who has served as apostolic administrator for the Archdiocese of Vienna since January, will succeed Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, who has led the archdiocese since 1995.

A 17th-century monastery in northern Italy where recently canonized St. Carlo Acutis received his first Communion was in ruins after a massive fire ravaged the historic building.

 Construction of the basilica began in 1882, and is considered a masterpiece of Antoni Gaudí, a Catholic whose cause for sainthood is underway. 

It all has the vibe of a World Youth Day, the Catholic Woodstock festival that Pope John Paul II inaugurated and made famous in 2000 in Rome at the very same Tor Vergata field. 

Rome's historic Risorgimento Square was transformed into an outdoor concert venue to host a festival marking the close of the Jubilee of Digital Missionaries and Catholic Influencers, which was part of the larger Jubilee of Youth taking place in Rome.

Msgr. Carlo Alberto Capella, a former Vatican diplomat who was convicted of distributing and possessing child pornography, continues to work at the Vatican Secretariat of State as one of several clerks, a report says.

In an unusually blunt statement published June 15, the Cuban bishops' conference said that throughout the country, "it is continuously heard that things are not well, that we cannot continue like this, that something must be done to save Cuba and restore hope to us."

In the first week of Leo pontificate, the leading expert on the abuse crisis — as well as several survivors and victims of abuse — has come to the defense of the newly elected Roman pontiff after two organizations advocating for victims of abuse raised concerns regarding Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost's record on the matter not long after he was elected.

While members of the College of Cardinals famously take an oath, so do Vatican staff members, including the elevator operator, doctors and attendants, who will be assisting with the everyday tasks and needs of the cardinals during the conclave which begins May 7.

While the fruits of the reforms made throughout his 12-year papacy are yet to be determined, what can't be denied is his pastoral approach that tried to place victims at the heart of the church's response to clergy sexual abuse.

As Pope Francis continues to recover at Rome's Gemelli Hospital, Catholics in the pope's Diocese of Rome and around the world joined in prayer for his health.
 

Thousands of people gathered Feb. 16 in the small village of Pyin Oo Lwin in Myanmar to pay their final respects to Father Donald Martin Ye Naing Win, a priest who was found stabbed to death in a targeted attack.
 

In the lead up to the 20th anniversary of the death of Sister Stang, who is considered by many as a "Martyr of the Amazon," a relic containing blood-soaked soil from the site of her murder was enshrined at the Basilica of St. Bartholomew on Tiber Island in Rome on Jan. 10.

An official of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith said Pope Francis' decision to suppress Sodalitium Christianae Vitae was based on the fact that there was no authentic charism, or spiritual gifts, in the controversial lay movement founded by Luis Fernando Figari in 1971.
 

The controversial lay movement Sodalitium Christianae Vitae was forced to confirm news that it was suppressed by Pope Francis after two of its members leaked the news to a Catholic news outlet.
 

In a statement released Jan. 16 by the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, the Catholic Ordinaries of the Holy Land said they hoped the ceasefire "will mark an important end to the violence that has caused immeasurable suffering."
 

The pontiff's message, which was recorded amid the final days of the Synod on Synodality in Rome, was posted on the YouTube channel of the Archdioceses of Lima Oct. 24. Francis said Gutiérrez was a man who "knew how to stay silent when he needed to be silent, who knew how to suffer when he had to suffer, and who managed to bring forward so much apostolic fruit and such rich theology."

Cardinal Gerhard Müller, former prefect of the then-Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, told OSV News that the late Father Gustavo Gutiérrez's theological work will leave a lasting contribution to the Catholic Church in seeing "signs and the peculiarities of the time" and to view them through "the light of the Gospel" that leads not only to change in pastoral practice but "to change society, the conditions of life and to make it better according to (everyone's) dignity."