Posted on 05/30/2025 20:53 PM (CNA Daily News - Vatican)
Lima Newsroom, May 30, 2025 / 16:53 pm (CNA).
Pope Leo XIV encouraged the Anabaptist (Mennonite) movement to live with love the call to Christian unity and the mandate to serve others.
The Holy Father made the statement in a message published May 29 by the Vatican and sent to participants commemorating the 500th anniversary of the Anabaptist movement in Zurich, Switzerland.
At the beginning of his message, Pope Leo emphasized that “by receiving the Lord’s peace and accepting his call, which includes being open to the gifts of the Holy Spirit, all the followers of Jesus can immerse themselves in the radical newness of Christian faith and life. Indeed, such a desire for renewal characterizes the Anabaptist movement itself.”
“The motto chosen for your celebration, ‘The Courage to Love,’ reminds us, above all, of the need for Catholics and Mennonites to make every effort to live out the commandment of love, the call to Christian unity, and the mandate to serve others,” Leo XIV emphasized.
Likewise, the pontiff’s text continues, the motto “points to the need for honesty and kindness in reflecting on our common history, which includes painful wounds and narratives that affect Catholic-Mennonite relationships and perceptions up to the present day.”
“How important, then, is that purification of memories and common re-reading of history that can enable us to heal past wounds and build a new future through the ‘courage to love,’” he pointed out.
“What is more, only in such a way can theological and pastoral dialogue bear fruit, fruit that will last. This is certainly no easy task! Yet, it was precisely at particular moments of trial that Christ revealed the Father’s will: It was when challenged by the Pharisees that he taught us that the two greatest commandments are to love God and our neighbor,” the pope said.
“It was on the eve of his passion,” he noted, “that he spoke of the need for unity, ‘that all may be one… so that the world may believe.’ My wish for each of us, then, is that we can say with St. Augustine: ‘My entire hope is exclusively in your very great mercy. Grant what you command, and command what you will.’”
In the context of “our war-torn world,” the pope continued, “our ongoing journey of healing and of deepening fraternity has a vital role to play, for the more united Christians are the more effective will be our witness to Christ, the prince of peace, in building up a civilization of loving encounter.”
The Mennonites are an Anabaptist Christian group that originated during the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century.
Their name comes from Menno Simons, a Catholic priest who would become an important theologian of this movement.
Distinguishing features of the Mennonites are their pacifism or rejection of war, their emphasis on baptism in adulthood, and their community life in which they share goods and services and work together to maintain the community.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
Posted on 05/30/2025 19:44 PM (CNA Daily News - Vatican)
Vatican City, May 30, 2025 / 15:44 pm (CNA).
Pope Leo XIV on Friday stated that authentic peace “takes shape from the ground up” when the differences and conflicts they entail “are not set aside but acknowledged, understood, and surmounted.”
Pope Leo began his address to members of various peace movements, whom he received May 30 at the Vatican, with the same words he greeted the faithful when he was elected on May 8: “Dear brothers and sisters, peace be with you!”
The pontiff thanked them for launching the “Arena of Peace” meeting in Verona in May 2024. The event was chaired by Pope Francis and attended by some 300 delegates representing associations and movements that participated in the event.
Among the groups and movements present in the Clementine Hall on Friday were Mediterranea Saving Humans, Libera, the Italian Network for Peace and Disarmament, Catholic Action leaders, Doctors Without Borders, and the Focolare Movement.
The Holy Father recalled that, on that occasion a year ago, Pope Francis reiterated that building peace begins by “standing alongside victims, seeing things from their point of view.”
This approach, according to Leo XIV, “is essential for disarming hearts, approaches, and mentalities, and for denouncing the injustices of a system that kills and is based on the throwaway culture.”
He particularly noted “the courageous embrace” between Israeli Maoz Inon, whose parents were killed by Hamas, and Palestinian Aziz Sarah, whose brother was killed by the Israeli army. Both were present at today’s audience.
“That gesture remains as a testimony and sign of hope,” he added.
“The path to peace demands hearts and minds trained in concern for others and capable of perceiving the common good in today’s world,” the pope continued.
He pointed out that the path to peace involves everyone and that it “leads to the fostering of right relationships between all living beings.”
In an age like our own, “marked by speed and immediacy,” Leo XIV emphasized the need to “recover the patience required for this process to occur.”
In this context, he explained that “authentic peace takes shape from the ground up, beginning with places, communities, and local institutions, and by listening to what they have to tell us. In this way, we come to realize that peace is possible when disagreements and the conflicts they entail are not set aside but acknowledged, understood, and surmounted.”
The pope therefore urged the peace movement members to promote dialogue with all and to maintain “the creativity and ingenuity born of a culture of peace,” with projects that simultaneously inspire hope.
The Holy Father lamented that “all too much violence exists in the world,” reiterating that, in the face of wars, terrorism, human trafficking, and widespread aggression, “our children and young people need to be able to experience the culture of life, dialogue, and mutual respect.”
“Above all,” the pontiff continued, they need the witness of men and women “who embody a different and nonviolent way of living.” He therefore noted that victims who reject revenge become “the most credible agents of nonviolent peacebuilding processes.”
“Nonviolence, as a method and a style, must distinguish our decisions, our relationships, and our actions,” he added.
He also proposed the Gospel and the Church’s social doctrine as the “constant source of support for Christians in this effort” and also as a “compass for everyone.”
“Because it is, in fact, a task entrusted to all, believers and nonbelievers, who must develop and carry it out through reflection and practice inspired by the dignity of the person and the common good,” Pope Leo emphasized.
In this way, he emphasized that peace rests in the hands of all institutions and therefore invited them to be present “within history as a leaven of unity, communion, and fraternity.”
“Fraternity needs to be recovered, loved, experienced, proclaimed, and witnessed,” the pontiff emphasized before encouraging members of the peace movements to act “with patient perseverance.”
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
Posted on 05/30/2025 17:38 PM (CNA Daily News - Vatican)
Vatican City, May 30, 2025 / 13:38 pm (CNA).
Cardinal Willem Eijk on Friday said the Pontifical Academy for Life should give more attention to the bioethical issues linked to “gender affirming” therapies and “transgender” treatments.
The Dutch cardinal, a physician and member of the Pontifical Academy for Life, opened the third annual conference organized by the platform International Chair of Bioethics Jérôme Lejeune, taking place in Rome from May 30–31. The theme of this year’s conference is “The Splendor of Truth in Science and Bioethics.”
In an exclusive interview with EWTN Vatican Bureau Chief Andreas Thonhauser, the cardinal archbishop of Utrecht, Netherlands, said that in addition to artificial intelligence, the Church needs to come together to discuss the impact of gender-affirming treatments.
“They are now very popular and they are now well accepted in many countries,” he said in the interview.
“I’m glad that now in the United States, this gender discussion is a little bit pushed back and it has also had a positive influence on Western European societies,” he added.
According to Eijk, the Pontifical Academy for Life has more opportunity to talk about the Church’s teachings on the relationship between sex and gender at a time when the appeal of “gender theory” appears to be now “less strong” than it was in the past.
“So we see that the gender discussion was very strong, you know, a few years ago,” he said. “They were almost pushing gender theory in society, culture, and also educational programs at elementary schools.”
“Now there is a lot of resistance and you can see that many people are now wondering should we do that with our young people?” he added. “So at least, you know, the question is coming up, is it right to do so?”
Although Eijk expressed dismay that “dualistic philosophies” — which fundamentally divide the mind and body as opposing forces — have more influence on scientific discourse and medical practice, he believes the Church can still speak about the intrinsic value of the human person as God’s creation that should be respected.
“According to our Catholic view of man, biological sex is an intrinsic part of the dimension of the human being,” he said. “Transmitting the truth with regard to biological sex and relationship between gender and biological sex is an element of creation and it’s something that you’d respect.”
Though the cardinal noted that many people are inclined to view the body as an “exigent object” that you can use to express yourself or adapt to your taste, he said that a Church that is united in teaching can be very helpful for Catholic faithful who want to uphold the dignity of human life.
“And when we proclaim this truth in an unambiguous way, in a clear way, I think that people will not be confused anymore but can start to rethink about the basic truths of life and especially basic truths concerning Christ and Christian morality,” he shared.
Earlier this week, Pope Leo XIV appointed Monsignor Renzo Pegoraro, a bioethicist with a medical degree, as the new president of the Pontifical Academy for Life succeeding Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia. Pegoraro has served as the Vatican academy’s chancellor since September 2011.
Updated on Sunday, June 1 with correct title of EWTN Vatican Bureau Chief Andreas Thonhauser.
Posted on 05/29/2025 21:29 PM (CNA Daily News - Vatican)
Vatican City, May 29, 2025 / 17:29 pm (CNA).
More than 60,000 pilgrims from 120 countries will be in Rome this weekend to participate in the Jubilee of Families, Children, Grandparents, and the Elderly taking place from Friday, May 30, to Sunday, June 1.
The event, which is part of the celebrations for the Jubilee 2025, will bring together three generations — parents, children, and grandparents — in one of the major events of the holy year. It will include pilgrimages and moments of prayer in a fun atmosphere under the theme of family unity.
According to the organizers, the largest delegations will come from Italy, Spain, the United States, Poland, and Portugal. Numerous participants are also expected from Latin America, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, the Philippines, and several African countries.
The presence of ecclesial movements will also loom large, and among them will be the Catholic Grandparents Association, an international organization founded in Ireland by Catherine Wiley in 2001 dedicated to supporting, promoting, and encouraging the spiritual and pastoral role of grandparents within the Catholic Church.
Also participating will be the Neocatechumenal Way, founded in Madrid in 1964 by Kiko Argüello and Carmen Hernández.
The program will get underway on Friday, May 30, with many families making the pilgrimage to the Holy Doors of four major basilicas in Rome: St. Peter’s, St. John Lateran, St. Mary Major, and St. Paul Outside the Walls.
One of the highlights of this jubilee event will take place on Saturday afternoon with a “Family Festival” in St. John Lateran Square from 6:30 to 8 p.m. local time, which will combine a musical concert with moments of prayer.
The event will be hosted by renowned Italian journalist Lorena Bianchetti. Since 1999 Bianchetti has hosted, on Italian public television, a program produced in collaboration with the Italian Bishops’ Conference that addresses current affairs from a Christian perspective. The event will also feature performances by Christian music groups The Sun and Gen Verde, and will conclude with the rosary.
The Jubilee for Families, Children, Grandparents, and the Elderly will conclude on Sunday, June 1, with a Mass celebrated by Pope Leo XIV in St. Peter’s Square at 10:30 a.m. local time.
During the ceremony, 10,000 copies of the new edition of the “Children’s Bible” will be distributed. This version, adapted and designed to introduce children to the holy Scriptures in an accessible and engaging way, will be offered by the pontifical foundation Aid to the Church in Need.
Since launching this edition of the “Children’s Bible” in 1979, the organization has distributed more than 51 million copies worldwide, and it has been translated into more than 190 languages and local dialects.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
Posted on 05/29/2025 19:12 PM (CNA Daily News - Vatican)
Lima Newsroom, May 29, 2025 / 15:12 pm (CNA).
Pope Leo XIV has appointed Cardinal Robert Sarah as his special envoy for the celebrations taking place in France commemorating the 400th anniversary of the apparitions of St. Anne to the Breton peasant Yvon Nicolazic.
The Vatican stated that, as the papal special envoy, the prefect emeritus of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments will preside over “the liturgical celebrations to be held July 25-26 at the Shrine of Sainte-Anne-d’Auray, Diocese of Vannes (France), on the occasion of the 400th anniversary of the apparitions of St. Anne to the Breton peasant Yvon Nicolazic.”
In the early 1620s, Nicolazic experienced a vision of a radiant lady, later identified as St. Anne, the mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary. She reportedly instructed him to rebuild a long-lost chapel dedicated to her on his land.
On its website, the Sainte-Anne-d’Auray Shrine states that this happened on July 25, 1624, the eve of the feast of St. Anne.
“The next 7th of March, following St. Anne’s call, Yvon Nicolazic discovered a statue of St. Anne in the ruins of a chapel in his field at Bocenno. It was the sign giving proof of the truth of the apparitions,” the website adds.
The shrine notes that “from that day forward, pilgrims came in droves to this place then called “Keranna,” or “the village of Anne,” proving that St. Anne was honored in this place even before the apparitions, a fact borne out by the presence of the old chapel stones among which the statue was found.”
The shrine notes that after four centuries, the pilgrimages “retain their vitality.” St. John Paul II visited the Shrine of Sainte-Anne d’Auray on Sept. 20, 1996.
As part of the fourth centenary of the apparitions, the shrine is also celebrating its jubilee year, holding a series of devotional and academic activities.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
Posted on 05/29/2025 16:12 PM (CNA Daily News - Vatican)
Vatican City, May 29, 2025 / 12:12 pm (CNA).
The Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development and Caritas Internationalis joined forces this week to address the impact of an “unjust global system” that makes rich nations wealthier at the expense of poorer nations.
The two Catholic organizations hosted an online “town hall” event on Wednesday titled “Pilgrims of Hope: Jubilee Inspiration for Action on Debt, Climate, and Development” to raise awareness of Pope Francis’ and Pope Leo XIV’s visions for dismantling economic structures impoverishing both people and the planet.
Guest panelist Sister Alessandra Smerilli, an economist and secretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, insisted that the “commercial imbalance” between global north and global south nations is a two-pronged issue that should not be ignored by the Church and wider society.
“The poorest countries are paying twice,” Smerilli said at the May 28 webinar. “Through debt obligations and again through environmental degradation and loss of futures.”
“Addressing debt and sustainability is not just a financial issue [but] it has a moral, spiritual imperative,” she added. “The Catholic Church has long been engaged in this mission since the Jubilee Year of 2000 to today’s Jubilee of Hope.”
More than 200 people attended the virtual meeting, which brought together Vatican officials, international economic experts, religious leaders, and civil society representatives to discuss potential solutions to the debt crisis affecting 3.3 billion people living in developing nations.
During the hourlong online meeting, Archbishop Gabriele Giordano Caccia, permanent observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, said the Church’s holy year dedicated to hope is an opportunity for global solidarity to support the world’s poor.
“The concept of ‘jubilee’ is deeply rooted in Scripture as a time of restoration when debts are forgiven and relationships are reconciled,” Caccia explained. “In our time, this tradition speaks directly to the lived experience of millions across the globe.”
More than 50 nations are currently in or at high risk of bankruptcy and around half of the world’s population are living in countries where debt payments exceed spending on services such as health care and education, the Holy See representative highlighted during the Wednesday meeting.
Describing the current debt crisis as a “profound failure of our global economic system,” Caccia expressed hope for a “renewed vision of multilateralism” at the United Nations’ upcoming fourth International Conference on Financing for Development to take place from June 30 to July 5 in Seville, Spain.
“No one is exempted from striving to ensure respect for the dignity of every person, especially the most frail and vulnerable,” Caccia said, quoting Pope Leo’s May 16 speech to diplomats accredited to the Holy See.
“Together we can turn the jubilee vision of hope into a tangible action, ensuring that no one is left behind,” he shared with webinar participants.
To open the 2025 Jubilee Year of Hope, Pope Francis made a plea in his papal bull Spes Non Confundit for more affluent nations to “forgive the debts of countries that will never be able to repay them.”
Posted on 05/29/2025 14:48 PM (Catholic News Agency)
CNA Deutsch, May 29, 2025 / 10:48 am (CNA).
The Archdiocese of Paderborn in western Germany expressed regret that the staging had “hurt religious feelings” and has since initiated internal reviews.
Posted on 05/29/2025 14:09 PM (CNA Daily News - Vatican)
Vatican City, May 29, 2025 / 10:09 am (CNA).
World-class cyclists will greet Pope Leo XIV and circle Vatican City on Sunday before embarking on the final lap of the Giro d’Italia, a multistage bicycle race that concludes in Rome.
The professional race, which started in Albania on May 9, is among the top three most important international multistage races in the world, together with the Tour de France and the Vuelta a Espana. It includes 21 stages, mostly in Italy.
The last stage of the 108th edition of the race will take place on June 1, starting from the Caracalla Baths, just south of the Coliseum, and proceeding toward the Vatican.
The 1.8-mile noncompetitive ride through the Vatican will start from the Petriano Square, just south of St. Peter’s Basilica inside the city state, where Pope Leo XIV will greet the athletes at the starting line.
The path of the race will then follow the Vatican walls past the basilica to climb toward the Vatican Gardens and arrive at the heliport, the highest, westernmost point of the territory.
The racers will then pedal through a green space dotted with Marian images, including a replica of the Lourdes grotto and a mosaic of Our Lady of Good Counsel — a favorite devotion of Pope Leo. After descending toward the Vatican Museums and the “Square Garden,” the cyclists will double back along the rear of St. Peter’s Basilica to exit out a side gate on the south side of Vatican City.
The history of the cycling competition dates back to 1909. The annual race has taken place over three weeks between May and June every year since its beginning, with interruptions only for the First and Second World Wars. In 1946 and 2020 it was postponed but still took place.
Among the storied winners of the Giro d’Italia is Italian cycling champion Gino Bartali, a devout Catholic who helped save more than 800 Jews during World War II.
Bartali, who was declared “Righteous Among the Nations” by Yad Vashem in 2013, won the Giro d’Italia twice between 1936 and the outbreak of the Second World War. He was also a twice winner of the Tour de France.
Using cycling training as a cover, during World War II, the road cyclist transported photographs and forged documents between Florence and Franciscan convents in the surrounding regions where Jews were hidden. He also carried messages and documents for the Italian Resistance.
Bartali also assisted the Assisi Network, an underground network of Catholic clergy who hid Jews in convents and monasteries during World War II by taking Jews from the hiding places to the Swiss Alps in a wagon with a secret compartment attached to his bicycle. If he was stopped, he said that the wagon was for training.
The champion’s reputation and popularity as Italy’s top cyclist meant that he was largely left alone by the Fascist police and German troops, who did not want to risk upsetting his numerous fans by arresting him.
The cyclist used to say: “Good is done, but not said. And certain medals hang on the soul, not on the jacket.”
The husband and father of three children died in 2000 at the age of 85. His cause for beatification was opened in 2018.
Posted on 05/29/2025 10:00 AM (CNA Daily News - Vatican)
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, May 29, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).
When the newly elected pontiff stepped onto the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica to address the Catholic faithful on May 8, his first decision as pope — to take the papal name Leo — signaled the direction he intends to take his papacy in handling certain social questions that need moral guidance, including artificial intelligence (AI).
In his first meeting with the College of Cardinals on May 10, the pope confirmed he took the name to honor Pope Leo XIII, who he said “addressed the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution” with the encyclical Rerum Novarum at the tail end of the 1800s.
The encyclical, which set the foundations for Catholic social teaching, can help guide the Church as it seeks to offer moral insight on “developments in the field of artificial intelligence,” the new pontiff explained, adding that the rise of AI poses “new challenges for the defense of human dignity, justice, and labor.”
In the influential encyclical, Leo XIII eschewed both socialism and unrestrained business power, opting for cooperation between competing interests that is centered on the dignity of the human person. Pope Leo XIV’s comments suggest these same principles will shape the Holy Father’s approach to similar questions surrounding AI.
Leo XIII published Rerum Novarum on May 15, 1891, at a time when laborers were struggling with poor working conditions amid the industrial revolution and when Marxists were seizing on the discontent to promote radical changes to the social order.
Essentially, Leo XIII was “primarily concerned with laying out … a philosophical or theological anthropology” that focused on “the human person and the dignity of work,” according to Joseph Grabowski, the vice president of evangelization and mission at the Society of Gilbert Keith Chesterton.
In the encyclical, Leo XIII wrote that there is a need “in drawing the rich and the working class together,” which could be accomplished by “reminding each of its duties to the other” and “of the obligations of justice.”
These obligations to justice include a business owner’s duty to “respect in every man his dignity as a person ennobled by Christian character” and to never “misuse men as though they were things in the pursuit of gain or to value them solely for their physical powers,” Leo XIII taught.
Grabowski told CNA that one of the problems of industrialization was that people were “kind of viewed mechanistically” when working in factories and that the pontiff was reminding factory owners that humans should not be treated as though they are simply “part of a machine.”
Leo XIII also defended the right to private property, which he wrote must “belong to a man in his capacity of head of family” and rebuked Marxist and socialist ideologies, which he thought would disrupt the social order by pitting humans against each other and turning private property into “the common property of all, to be administered by the state or by municipal bodies.”
“It is a most sacred law of nature that a father should provide food and all necessaries for those whom he has begotten,” Leo XIII wrote. “And similarly, it is natural that he should wish that his children, who carry on, so to speak, and continue his personality, should be by him provided with all that is needful to enable them to keep themselves decently from want and misery amid the uncertainties of this mortal life.”
Grabowski said if one were to summarize the encyclical in one line, it would be: “The economy is meant to serve man and not vice versa.”
“Economics and productive work and things like that are all really about man’s nature and serving the highest end of man,” he said, which is to “get to heaven” and live in a “harmonious community.”
Pope Leo XIV’s predecessor Pope Francis already incorporated some elements of Catholic social teaching into the Church’s approach to questions surrounding AI.
In December 2023, Francis urged global leaders to regulate AI toward “the pursuit of peace and the common good” and emphasized that innovations must avoid a “technological dictatorship” and instead be used to serve “the cause of human fraternity and peace.”
The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith in January released a 30-page “note” that explained that AI lacks “the richness of corporeality, relationality, and the openness of the human heart” and that innovation should spur “a renewed appreciation of all that is human.”
Grabowski told CNA that, as AI continues to advance and the Church formalizes its teachings on the new technology, Leo XIV will be contending with some of the same issues that Leo XIII wrestled with at the turn of the 20th century.
“It’s still a question of: How do we use machinery within economic production in a way to serve man [that] does not subvert man to servitude of the machine?” he said.
AI is already being incorporated into many workplaces, such as the fields of marketing, banking, health care, and coding. The adoption of AI can sometimes improve accuracy and efficiency but is yielding concerns that the technology could replace humans in certain activities.
A May 25 New York Times article noted that some software developers at Amazon are complaining that their work is becoming routine and thoughtless as much of the coding has been automated with AI, while other workers are cheering the increased productivity.
Alternatively, in health care, an October 2024 Forbes article noted that AI is helping doctors find anomalies in patients and link symptoms together to boost the speed and accuracy of medical diagnoses.
Speaking to the AI assistance in the field of medicine, Grabowski said: “There can be benefits there” with the technology helping doctors “look through symptoms and maybe come up with things a human doctor isn’t going to catch onto.”
“We would have no objection to that, but like with everything, a balance is called for,” he said.
In line with some complaints reported at Amazon, Grabowski said “increasingly mechanized work” poses a concern, and with AI, there’s a lot of outsourcing of “the creative process” and “the idea generation process” with the ability of AI to produce art and novels, which he called “somewhat alarming.”
“There is a notion of a right to a meaningful employment for a person [in Leo XIII’s writings],” he added. “To be fulfilled.”
Another principle of Rerum Novarum that can help guide teaching on AI is the concern about a “respect over property, over productive property,” Grabowski noted, highlighting that one issue with AI is “respect for intellectual property rights.”
“There’s great concern over the fact that [AI] isn’t really producing anything itself, so therefore it’s recycling the words and images created by other real people and usually doing so without credit,” he said.
Grabowski said the pontiff’s choice to pick the name Leo is “exciting,” given that the world is in a “very critical point in economic history.” He expressed hope that people will be amenable to the expected moral guidance from the Holy See and referenced a line from G.K. Chesterton’s book “What’s Wrong With The World.”
“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting,” Chesterton wrote. “It has been found difficult and left untried.”
Posted on 05/28/2025 22:11 PM (Catholic News Agency)
Madrid, Spain, May 28, 2025 / 18:11 pm (CNA).
Approximately 93,000 faithful venerated the body of St. Teresa of Jesus (Ávila), which was publicly exhibited May 11–25 for the third time in four centuries.