Zurich, Switzerland. / Credit: Gianfranco Vivi/Shutterstock

CNA Newsroom, Jul 22, 2025 / 08:42 am (CNA).

The Zurich public prosecutor’s office accuses Sanija Ameti of publicly disparaging religious beliefs and disturbing religious peace.

Pope Leo XIV greets residents of St. Martha Home for the Elderly in Castel Gandolfo, Italy, during a visit on July 21, 2025. / Credit: Vatican Media

ACI Prensa Staff, Jul 21, 2025 / 15:12 pm (CNA).

After spending time praying in the chapel, the Holy Father personally greeted approximately 20 elderly people, all between the ages of 80 and 101.

The Muñoz family gives Pope Leo XIV a T-shirt that reads “Da Pope” after Mass in Albano, Italy, on Sunday, July 20, 2025. / Credit: Vatican Media

CNA Staff, Jul 21, 2025 / 14:06 pm (CNA).

Marcel and Ann Muñoz, along with their three children, met Pope Leo XIV after Mass on July 20 at the Cathedral of Albano and gifted him a shirt that reads “Da Pope.”

Bishop Robert Barron speaks to tens of thousands of young people at a World Youth Day gathering in Lisbon, Portugal, Aug. 2, 2023. The event, hosted by the U.S. bishops’ conference, culminated in a Eucharistic procession and Holy Hour. / Credit: Nuria Chiccon/EWTN News

Vatican City, Jul 21, 2025 / 12:44 pm (CNA).

Bishop Robert Barron will deliver a keynote address to more than 3,500 young American pilgrims at a special event in Rome on July 30, part of the global Jubilee of Youth celebrations expected to draw more than 100,000 young people to the Eternal City.

The U.S. National Pilgrim Gathering at the Papal Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls is being organized by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and will include Eucharistic adoration, catechesis, and a procession with relics of 12 saints and blesseds significant to the American Church and Catholic youth.

Barron, the bishop of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, and chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life, and Youth, will speak on what it means to be a missionary witness in today’s world.

Pilgrims will have the opportunity to walk through the basilica’s Holy Door, opened as part of the Catholic Church’s jubilee year observances, and to pray before the tomb of St. Paul.

Bishop Edward Burns of Dallas, who is the committee’s chairman-elect, will lead a Eucharistic Holy Hour during the three-hour evening event, which begins at 7 p.m. local time (1 p.m. ET). EWTN will broadcast the event and a livestream will also be available on the USCCB’s YouTube channel. U.S. dioceses are encouraging parishes to tune in with youth groups back home.

Barron, known for digital evangelization efforts through his Word on Fire media ministry, rose to prominence by leveraging online platforms like YouTube and Reddit to reach young Catholics and the religiously unaffiliated.

His keynote comes just one day after the close of the Jubilee of Digital Missionaries and Catholic Influencers, a parallel event in Rome featuring Jesuit Fathers David McCallum and Antonio Spadaro as speakers. Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle will also offer a Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica on July 29 for the young digital missionaries.

The Jubilee of Youth, running from July 28 to Aug. 3, includes a slate of spiritual and cultural events. Among them: a penitential day at Circus Maximus on Aug. 1, a massive prayer vigil at Tor Vergata on Aug. 2 led by Pope Leo XIV, and a closing Mass celebrated by the pope on Aug. 3.

Pilgrims will also be invited to participate in walking pilgrimages to sites linked to young saints, aided by digital maps on the EWTN Travel App. Stops include the tombs of St. Agnes, St. Cecilia, and St. Philip Neri, as well as relics that have been brought to the Eternal City for the jubilee, including the relics of Blessed Carlo Acutis, Blessed Ivan Merz, and the tomb of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati.

Other national groups are also marking the week with their own events. More than 1,000 South Korean pilgrims will gather for Mass at the Basilica of San Crisogono in Trastevere on July 31, celebrated by Cardinal Andrew Yeom Soo-jung, the archbishop emeritus of Seoul, with Auxiliary Bishop Paul Kyung-sang Lee of Seoul preaching the homily. The Archdiocese of Seoul will host the next World Youth Day with the pope in 2027.

The Canadian National Pilgrim Gathering will take place on July 29 at the Basilica of Sant’Andrea della Valle.

Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki. / Credit: Archdiocese of Cologne

CNA Newsroom, Jul 21, 2025 / 09:32 am (CNA).

The Archdiocese of Cologne has dismissed a canonical complaint filed against Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki by German abuse survivors to Pope Leo XIV.

Pope Leo XIV speaks by video call with Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin from Castel Gandolfo, Italy, on July 20, 2025. / Credit: Holy See Press Office

Rome Newsroom, Jul 21, 2025 / 06:30 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV marked the 56th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing with a video call to U.S. astronaut Buzz Aldrin and a visit to the Vatican Observatory, located on the papal estate of Castel Gandolfo, where he has been staying for two weeks.

According to the Vatican, the pontiff’s July 20 call with the 95-year-old Aldrin, the last surviving Apollo 11 crew member, included reminiscing on the historic 1969 landing and meditating together on the “mystery, greatness, and fragility” of God’s creation as described in Psalm 8.

Earlier in the day, Leo visited the Vatican’s internationally-recognized observatory, called the Specola Vaticana, where he was able to look through the astronomical center’s historic telescopes.

The Vatican Observatory has been located on the papal estate of Castel Gandolfo, around 18 miles southeast of Rome, since the 1930s, but the history of the institution dates to the 18th century. After several years of closure in the late 1800s, Leo’s predecessor, Pope Leo XIII, re-founded the observatory in 1891.

In 1993, the Vatican Observatory Research Group, which opened a second research center at the University of Arizona in Tucson in 1981, completed construction of the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope in Mount Graham, Arizona.

Pope Leo has been taking a break from the heat of Rome with a sojourn at the lakeside town of Castel Gandolfo, a revival of a tradition last observed by Pope Benedict XVI. The pontiff’s stay was originally expected to end July 20, but the Vatican announced Sunday that Leo had extended the two-week stay an additional two days, through July 22.

A pope close to science

On June 16, Pope Leo XIV, who holds a degree in mathematics from Villanova University, expressed his appreciation for astronomy when he received the participants of this year’s Vatican Observatory Summer School.

On that occasion, he asked the young scientists to never forget “that what they do is meant to benefit everyone.”

“Be generous in sharing what you learn and what you experience, to the best of your ability and in any way possible,” he added.

The pope also urged them not to hesitate to share “the joy and wonder born of your contemplation of the ‘seeds’ which, in the words of St. Augustine, God has sown in the harmony of the universe.”

The summer program, held every two years, brings together young astronomers from different countries. The most recent edition hosted 24 students from 22 nations under the theme “Exploring the Universe with the James Webb Space Telescope,” an instrument that has revolutionized astronomical observation since 2022.

During his meeting with astronomy students, Pope Leo highlighted the importance of the advances made by the telescope: “For the first time we can deeply observe the atmosphere of exoplanets where life may be developing and study the nebulae where the planetary systems themselves are forming” as well as trace “the ancient light of distant galaxies, which speaks of the very beginning of our universe.”

Pope Leo XIV delivers the Angelus address on July 13, 2025, from Liberty Square in Castel Gandolfo, Italy, where he is spending a two-week summer break. / Credit: Vatican Media

Rome Newsroom, Jul 20, 2025 / 08:46 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV on Sunday prayed by name for the victims of a deadly Israeli strike on the only Catholic parish in Gaza, decrying the “barbarism of the war” as he renewed his call for an immediate ceasefire.

“I express my profound sadness regarding last Thursday’s attack by the Israeli army on the Catholic Parish of the Holy Family in Gaza City, which as you know killed three Christians and gravely wounded others,” the pope said in his Angelus address from the papal estate at Castel Gandolfo, about 16 miles southeast of Rome.

He named the dead — Saad Issa Kostandi Salameh, Foumia Issa Latif Ayyad, and Najwa Ibrahim Latif Abu Daoud — and said: “I am especially close to their families and all the parishioners.”

The July 17 strike on the parish compound also wounded nine others, including the local parish priest, Father Gabriel Romanelli. The church had been serving as a shelter for more than 600 people since the conflict began in October 2023, including Catholics, Orthodox Christians, and Muslims.

“Sadly, this act adds to the continuous military attacks against the civilian population and places of worship in Gaza,” Leo said. “I again call for an immediate halt to the barbarism of the war and for a peaceful resolution of the conflict.” 

“I renew my appeal to the international community to observe humanitarian law and to respect the obligation to protect civilians, as well as the prohibition of collective punishment, the indiscriminate use of force, and the forced displacement of the population.” 

Thursday’s attack drew swift condemnation from Church leaders. On the same day, Pope Leo sent a telegram signed by Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin lamenting the loss of life and injuries caused by the military attack and calling for an immediate ceasefire. The following day, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa and Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theophilos III entered Gaza to offer spiritual, moral, and material comfort. 

According to Caritas Jerusalem, two of the victims were outside the main parish building — which had been repurposed into a shelter — when the explosion occurred. Salameh, 60, the parish caretaker, was in the courtyard, and Ayyad, 84, was sitting inside a Caritas psychosocial support tent when shrapnel and falling debris struck them. Both later died at Al-Mamadani Hospital due to what Caritas called a “severe shortage of medical resources and blood units in Gaza.” 

Israel Defense Forces acknowledged responsibility, stating that “fragments from a shell fired during operational activity in the area hit the church mistakenly.”  

Pope Leo XIV also spoke on the phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu following the strike, urging the reactivation of peace negotiations. He reiterated his concern for the humanitarian situation of the population in Gaza, “whose heartbreaking price is being paid, in particular, by children, the elderly, and the sick,” a statement from the Vatican said. 

After praying for the Gaza victims during his Angelus address, Pope Leo XIV offered a message of solidarity to all Christians in the region.  

“To our beloved Middle Eastern Christians, I say: I deeply sympathize with your feeling that you can do little in the face of this grave situation,” he said. “You are in the heart of the pope and of the whole Church. Thank you for your witness of faith.”

He entrusted them to the Virgin Mary, “woman of the Levant, dawn of the new Sun that has risen in history,” and prayed that she “protect you always and accompany the world towards dawns of peace.”

Sunday marked the second time Pope Leo has led the Angelus prayer from Castel Gandolfo during his two-week summer retreat. Earlier in the day, the pope offered a Mass for local Catholics in the nearby Cathedral Basilica of St. Pancras in Albano.

He ended his Angelus address by greeting pilgrims in the courtyard, including students and staff from the nearby Catholic Institute of Technology and a group of Catholic scouts on a jubilee pilgrimage destined for the tomb of Blessed Carlo Acutis, whom Pope Leo is expected to canonize in September as the first millennial Catholic saint.

The Vatican has confirmed that Pope Leo XIV will return to Vatican City on Tuesday.

St. Thomas More. / Credit: Public domain

Canterbury, England, Jul 19, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).

St. Dunstan’s Parochial Church Council in Canterbury says it “would very much welcome communication with the Vatican” about exhuming Thomas More’s skull.

Migrants aboard an inflatable vessel in the Mediterranean Sea approach the guided-missile destroyer USS Carney in 2013. Carney provided food and water to the migrants aboard the vessel before coordinating with a nearby merchant vessel to take them to safety. / Credit: Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa/U.S. 6th Fleet, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 17, 2025 / 17:15 pm (CNA).

This year’s written contribution by the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Union Youth Net centers on solutions for “fostering integration of migrants.”

Bishop Kevin Doran of Elphin, chairman of the Irish bishops’ Council for Life (far left), and Archbishop Eamon Martin of Armagh, primate of all Ireland (second from left), stand with young pro-life activists at the 2024 Ireland March for Life in Dublin on May 6, 2024. / Credit: Courtesy of Pro Life Campaign

Dublin, Ireland, Jul 17, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

One in 6 unborn children’s lives now end in abortion in the Republic of Ireland.