Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church

ROME (CNS) -- In a full church on a Monday evening in Rome, just two days before the conclave to elect a new pope was set to begin, Cardinal Robert W. McElroy of Washington shared a confidence: "I have no guess" who will be chosen.

Like many cardinals did the previous day, Cardinal McElroy celebrated Mass May 5 at his titular church in Rome, the Parish of St. Frumentius. Having the "title" to the parish made the cardinal a member of the clergy of Rome in a symbolic sense and connected him to ancient times when the cardinals who elected popes were pastors of the city's parishes.

In the cardinal's brief homily in Italian, he referred to the first reading, Acts 6:8-15, which recounts the accusations made against St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr.

In two days, the cardinal said, "the other cardinals and I will enter the conclave to elect a new bishop for this city that knew thousands and thousands of martyrs."

"We pray that the new pope will lead people to a more profound faith and a closer relationship with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit," he said. 

Father Marco Vianello, pastor of St. Frumentius, spoke at the end of Mass and, to applause, told Cardinal McElroy, "We cannot vote in the conclave. But if we could, we would vote for you."

After 10 general congregation meetings of the College of Cardinals, when members discuss the needs of the church and the qualities the next pope should have, Cardinal McElroy said "it has become ever clearer to me how profound and mysterious this process is, to find a successor to Peter who meets the needs of the present."

"I can give you no insights into who is ahead," the cardinal continued. "Not because I cannot do so because of my promise, although I can't, but because I have no guess."

Cardinal McElroy told parishioners that entering the conclave to elect a new pope "is a tremendous responsibility and also a great mystery," however, he guaranteed them that all the cardinals are committed to choosing the best new bishop of the Diocese of Rome and pastor of the universal church.

Turning to the three dozen teenagers seated in the last rows of the choir loft adjacent to the sanctuary, the cardinal said that love and concern for young people has been at the center of the cardinals' prayers and "they are wrestling with what the church needs" to help them and all people feel at home in the church.
 

Let us all follow Mary’s example. Allowing the Word of God to find a space to live in our humble, jumbled hearts changes everything. He makes all things new. He does … really. When we meet Mary for the first time in Scripture, it is in the context of her encounter with Gabriel, an Archangel […]

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A Daily Quote to Inspire Your Catholic Faith “Never be afraid of loving the Blessed Virgin too much. You can never love her more than Jesus did.” – Saint Maximilian Kolbe The Memorial of St. Maximilian Kolbe, Priest and Martyr (1894 – 1941) is August 14. Image credit: “The Annunciation” (detail) | Paolo de Matteis, […]

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A member of the Papal Foundation greets Pope Francis with a personalized New Orleans Saints jersey, Friday, April 12, 2024. / Credit: Vatican Media

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, May 5, 2025 / 20:11 pm (CNA).

Following the death of Pope Francis last month, the Papal Foundation’s annual distribution of humanitarian aid will be in memory of the Holy Father’s legacy, the organization said in a press release. 

This year, the Papal Foundation — a nonprofit dedicated to serving the Holy Father’s wishes through donations to charitable initiatives of his choosing around the world — will channel $14 million in funding toward 116 projects across more than 60 countries. Projects include developing access to clean drinking water and housing, providing educational resources, restoring churches and seminaries, and constructing health care facilities in war-torn and impoverished areas. 

Customarily, representatives for the organization travel to Rome on the Friday after Divine Mercy Sunday to deliver the funding via check to the Holy Father, the president of the foundation’s board of trustees, Ward Fitzgerald, told CNA. This year, because their meeting was set to take place exactly one week after Pope Francis’ passing, they attended his funeral instead.

Fitzgerald said this year felt especially significant. “With [Pope Francis’] passing, we have a chance to be a voice for the poor — something he so powerfully embodied,” he said.

The average grant, according to Fitzgerald, is somewhere between $100,000 and $150,000. 

“We give them to schools, we give them to hospitals, we give them also to programs to help child trafficking issues or drug smuggling using children and abandoned children. We also are doing humanitarian aid relative to refugee situations and war situations in some of the poorest countries with some of the poorest people,” he said, noting that a portion of the grants often also go to clergy or religious communities whose buildings are in need of repair.

“It is well documented that [Francis] was a very loving, caring … sensitive Holy Father, and he had a heart for the poor,” Fitzgerald reflected. “He implored the laity to try to grow in their hearts to be more Christ-like, and specifically in their show of care for the poor. I think that that’s a big part of his papacy.”

“As we are all in anticipation of the next Holy Father,” he continued, “we don’t get to be Peter, but we can all be Paul … and hopefully, we are spreading the Gospel as well as spreading charity and caring for the poor around the globe as the early apostles and disciples did.” 

Grants have grown in steady increments for the past 20 years, Fitzgerald said. Since its inception in 1988, the Papal Foundation has distributed more than $250 million to over 2,800 projects designated by Pope Francis, Benedict XVI, and St. John Paul II. 

The foundation also announced this week its election of Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York, as chairman, and Edward Fitzgerald III, CEO and founder of the Catholic private equity firm ExCorde Capital, as president of its board of trustees. 

“The Gospel of Matthew teaches us: ‘Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me,’” Dolan stated in a press release on Monday. “In a world where the distance between wealth and need continues to widen, the Stewards of St. Peter of the Papal Foundation take seriously their responsibility to serve the poor and vulnerable with compassion and faith.”

ENCOUNTERING THE WORD — YOUR DAILY BIBLE VERSES Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst.” – John 6:35 Please help spread the Gospel. Share this Scripture with family and friends on Facebook and other social […]

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President Donald Trump speaks during an event in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., on May 5, 2025. / Credit: JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, May 5, 2025 / 14:57 pm (CNA).

President Donald Trump dismissed the criticism he faced after sharing an AI-generated image of himself as the pope on social media, asserting that the controversy was drummed up by the news media.

“You mean they can’t take a joke?” Trump rhetorically asked a reporter after he was questioned about backlash to the image. “You don’t mean the Catholics; you mean the fake news media.”

Trump said “the Catholics loved it” and noted that his wife, Melania, who is Catholic, “thought it was cute” before commenting that — if he were the pope — “I would not be able to be married though.”

“To the best of my knowledge, popes aren’t big on getting married, are they?” he said. “Not that we know of.”

Trump, who shared the image on Truth Social, said he “had nothing to do with” the picture, adding: “Somebody made up a picture of me dressed like the pope and they put it out on the internet.”

“That’s not me who did it,” the president continued. “I have no idea where it came from. Maybe it was AI, but I know nothing about it. I just saw it last evening.”

Trump, who frequently shares memes of himself on social media, posted the image to Truth Social on Friday after joking that he would like to be chosen as the next pope. The White House subsequently posted the photo on its official X account.

The social media posts came just days after the president said he would “like to be pope” when a reporter asked him who he hopes is selected in the upcoming papal conclave.  As part of his response to that same question, he went on to say he actually had “no preference” while also touting Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York as a “very good” candidate.

Responses from Catholic bishops

Trump’s latest joke about the matter received pushback from some Catholic leaders, including Dolan, Bishop Robert Barron, Bishop Thomas Paprocki, and the entire New York Catholic Conference. As of the time of publication, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) had not issued a statement nor responded to a request for comment from CNA.

Dolan, the archbishop of New York City and an appointee to Trump’s recently created Religious Liberty Commission, told a reporter in Rome that he hopes the president “had nothing to do with that” and said “it wasn’t good.”

Speaking in Italian, Dolan called the stunt “brutta figura,” essentially meaning that it was in bad form.

Barron, the bishop of Winona–Rochester, Minnesota, who was also appointed to the Religious Liberty Commission, told EWTN News that he thinks it was “a bad joke” and a “sophomoric attempt at humor.” 

“I don’t think at all it represents some disdain for the Catholic Church or some attack on the Catholic Church,” he said. “President Trump has signaled in all sorts of ways his support for and affection for the Catholic Church. I think it was a bad joke that obviously landed very poorly and was seen as offensive by a lot of Catholics and I wish he hadn’t done it.”

Milwaukee Archbishop Jeffrey S. Grob told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that the conclave is “a very serious time” for the Catholic Church and expressed displeasure that “we’ve lost great respect for moments like this.”

Some Catholic leaders who criticized the president took stronger offense to the image.

The New York State Catholic Conference, which represents the state’s bishops, posted on X that “there is nothing clever or funny about this image, Mr. President.”

“We just buried our beloved Pope Francis and the cardinals are about to enter a solemn conclave to elect a new successor of St. Peter,” the post added. “Do not mock us.”

Paprocki, who is the bishop of Springfield, Illinois, said on X that the photo “mocks God, the Catholic Church, and the papacy.”

“This is deeply offensive to Catholics especially during this sacred time that we are still mourning the death of Pope Francis and praying for the guidance of the Holy Spirit for the election of our new pope,” Paprocki wrote. “He owes an apology.”

Other Catholic figures did not take such offense, however.

Vice President JD Vance, who is a convert to Catholicism, responded to criticisms of the image from commentator and writer Bill Kristol, who is not Catholic.

“As a general rule,” wrote Vance, “I’m fine with people telling jokes and not fine with people starting stupid wars that kill thousands of my countrymen,” referring to Kristol’s role in support of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.

In a news release, Bill Donohue, the president of the Catholic League, called the image “dumb, but not bigoted.”

“What Trump did was silly, but it was hardly an expression of bigotry,” Donohue said. “We deal with real cases of anti-Catholicism at the Catholic League, not junior-league pranks.”

CatholicVote’s vice president Joshua Mercer — whose organization ran advertisements for Trump in the last election — said in a statement that the image is “obviously intended to be humorous.”

“There is no need to imagine that he believes he could be pope, or that he intended to mock the papacy,” Mercer said. “Memes depicting famous people as the new pope have been playfully circulating on social media everywhere for the past week.”

Brian Burch, the president of CatholicVote and Trump’s nominee as the ambassador to the Holy See, declined to comment. 

This story was updated May 5, 2025, at 5:14 p.m. ET with Trump’s comments on the image.

The popemobile used by Pope Francis during his visit to Bethlehem in 2014. / Credit: Courtesy of Caritas

Vatican City, May 5, 2025 / 13:56 pm (CNA).

Before his death, Pope Francis donated one of his popemobiles to be converted into a mobile clinic to assist the children of Gaza, one of the communities most affected by the war and humanitarian crisis in that region.

As Peter Brune, secretary-general of Caritas Sweden and one of the project’s driving forces, explained to ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, it is the popemobile the pontiff used during his visit to Bethlehem in May 2014 during his historic trip to the Holy Land. “Since then, the vehicle has been on display in a public square in the Palestinian city,” he said.

“The popemobile has been refurbished and upgraded to fulfill a new and hopeful mission: to provide medical assistance to injured and malnourished children who currently have no access to any type of health care,” Brune explained.

The initiative was personally entrusted by the pope to Caritas Jerusalem in the final months of his life to respond to the extremely serious humanitarian emergency in Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of displaced children live without access to food, clean water, or basic medical care amid the Hamas conflict with Israel.

With the new name of “Vehicle of Hope,” the former popemobile is being equipped with basic medical equipment: rapid diagnostic kits, suture materials, syringes, vaccines, oxygen, refrigerated medications, and other vital supplies.

The clinic will be operated by drivers and trained medical staff from Caritas Jerusalem, an organization with extensive experience in the region.

“This is a concrete, lifesaving intervention at a time when the health system in Gaza has virtually collapsed,” Brune emphasized.

The mobile pediatric clinic can be deployed in the Palestinian territory as soon as humanitarian access is restored, with the mission of “providing basic care in the most isolated areas and reminding the world that children’s rights and dignity must always be protected,” Brune explained.

“It is not just a medical tool but a symbol that the world has not forgotten the children of Gaza,” Brune added.

For his part, in a statement, Caritas Jerusalem Secretary-General Anton Asfar said the vehicle donated by Pope Francis represents “the love, care, and closeness that His Holiness showed toward the most vulnerable throughout the crisis.”

The last time Pope Francis rode in a popemobile was on Sunday, April 20, just one day before his death. Despite his delicate health, he chose to move about St. Peter’s Square one last time to greet the faithful after giving his “urbi et orbi” blessing. During that emotional tour, he asked to stop the vehicle several times to bless a child with cancer and several babies.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

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A millennium and a half before Jorge Bergoglio became pope, a baby girl was born on the margins: Neither here nor there, neither slave nor free, neither Christian nor pagan, she entered the world quite literally on the threshold, half in and half out of her father’s house, according to the Vita Prima, one of […]

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