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Editors' Choice

Pope Leo XIV is seen after the Angelus prayer in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican Sept. 13, 2026. After the Angelus on Oct. 11, he announced that he would undergo surgery to remove a lung nodule. (OSV News photo/Matteo Pernaselci, Vatican Media)

In Focus

Pope Leo to undergo surgery to remove lung nodule

The pope's operation will take place early this coming week at Rome's Gemelli hospital, where the popes typically receive medical care, and he is expected to remain in recovery for a week, the Vatican said. 

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Most Read Stories

Vatican News

#1
Pope Leo seeks status update of Francis' divisive opening to divorced and remarried Catholics

Church leaders will meet in Rome next week to understand how "The Joy of Love", Pope Francis' 2016 document on divorced and civilly remarried Catholics, has been implemented.

ByNicole Winfield, The Associated Press
Sculptures surround stained glass depicting the Holy Spirit as a dove, by Gian Lorenzo Bernini circa 1660, in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican. (Wikimedia Commons/Dnalor 01)

#2
How do we know if we are listening to the Holy Spirit or only to ourselves?

The Catholic tradition is the catalog of Catholics responding to the Holy Spirit in their own time. It is also a catalog of how previous generations of Christians were often blinded by their cultural circumstances.

ByMichael Sean Winters
Pope Leo XIV

#3
Pope Leo lays groundwork for future conclave by naming Filipino cardinal as dean of cardinals

Pope Leo XIV took a first step Friday to lay the groundwork for the eventual conclave that will elect his successor: He appointed Filipino Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle as the new dean of the College of Cardinals, elevating his profile as a papal contender in the process.

ByNicole Winfield, Associated Press

#4
Pope Leo urges frank reckoning with Catholic teaching on sex and marriage

#5
Pope names Irish sister to lead Vatican's missionary efforts

#6
Bishop Barron swings and misses, again

Opinion

5 ways everyday Americans can revive democratic norms

Pete Hegseth would like you to watch a public execution

Guest Voices
Letters to the Editor

Your letters: US diplomacy, restricting the chalice and the hierarchy

Letters to the Editor

Letters to the editor: NCR readers respond to stories about multilateralism, diocesan restrictions of the reception of communion under both kinds and the culture of the Roman Catholic hierarchy. 

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Podcast: 'Beatitudes should be part of our DNA,' says Pax Christi's Sr. Wamuyu Wachira

Guest Voices
French President Emmanuel Macron, right, listens to Pope Leo XIV delivering his speech at the meeting At the Roots of Europe for Peace and Unity, Monday, Sept. 28, 2026, in Metz, France. (AP/Gregorio Borgia)

Leo's emerging style of pastoral leadership

NCR Voices

"In a noisy and confusing culture, Leo's clarity and precision, as well as his obvious authenticity, break through," writes NCR columnist Michael Sean Winters.

Vatican

Pope Leo XIV celebrates Mass marking the start of the academic year at the Pontifical Universities in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, Oct. 8, 2026. (OSV News/Reuters/Remo Casilli)

Pope Leo will be hospitalized on Tuesday for lung operation, Vatican says

Pope Leo XIV is seen after the Angelus prayer in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican Sept. 13, 2026. After the Angelus on Oct. 11, he announced that he would undergo surgery to remove a lung nodule. (OSV News photo/Matteo Pernaselci, Vatican Media)

Pope Leo to undergo surgery to remove lung nodule

The pope's operation will take place early this coming week at Rome's Gemelli hospital, where the popes typically receive medical care, and he is expected to remain in recovery for a week, the Vatican said. 

ByJustin McLellan
Archbishop Vittorio Francesco Viola, former secretary of the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, has been named as the new archpriest of St. Peter's Basilica. (OSV News/CPP/Alessia Giuliani)
Vatican News

Pope Leo names Archbishop Viola new archpriest of St. Peter's Basilica

The Italian prelate will oversee the daily administration of the basilica and preside over liturgies when the pope is not present. 

ByCourtney Mares, OSV News
Pope Leo XIV holds up the book of the Gospel as he celebrates a mass in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, Thursday, Oct.8, 2026, for the annual opening of the academic year at pontifical universities, joining Rome's 22 pontifical institutions and numerous others worldwide. (AP/Gregorio Borgia)
Vatican News

Pope Leo blasts death penalty as US plans to livestream execution

The pontiff's tweet followed comments by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican secretary of state, criticizing the public firing squad execution of Nidal Malik Hasan.

ByNicole Winfield, Associated Press

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EarthBeat

The Salmon River, located in the mountains of east-central Idaho (Nikolas Dahmen)

A spotted sandpiper dances as I birdwatch with Kierkegaard

The Danish Christian thinker Søren Kierkegaard envisioned birds as teachers worthy of our attention. What can birdwatching teach us about joy?

Daughters of Divine Love Srs. Mary Calisata Iwuji and Jacinta Nwankwo pose for a photo in front of the diocesan clinic in Ezza-Nkwubor Nike, a remote village in Enugu State, southeast Nigeria. (Patrick Egwu)

Nigerian sisters minister amid inaccessible roads and flood disasters

A hospital run by the Daughters of Divine Love faces challenges from heavy rains and floods, which have damaged sections of the road leading to their community.

ByPatrick Egwu

Supreme Court hears key climate change lawsuit, but procedural question remains

In the first case of its new term Oct. 5, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a lawsuit from officials in Boulder, Colorado, against two major oil companies over climate change.

ByKate Scanlon, OSV News
Jeffie Hardin teaches gardening and farming techniques at a North Carolina Title I school. She and her husband, Chris Hardin, moved from the suburbs to a farm that eventually became both a source of food and a kind of informal classroom. (Courtesy of Chris Hardin)

Farming, faith and 'real synodality': How this Catholic couple lives Laudato Si'

Chris and Jeffie Hardin, who live in North Carolina, will visit the Vatican's Borgo Laudato Si' to learn more about how to live and teach ways that honor creation. 

ByCamillo Barone

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In and around Assisi, pilgrims retrace St. Francis' footsteps to kinship with creation

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Culture

The off-Broadway musical "Night Side Songs" is performed at the Lincoln Center's Claire Tow Theater in 2026. (Marc J. Franklin)

Off-Broadway show about cancer invites audience into healing liturgy

How do we mourn the people we have lost? Live with the wounds we've endured? Face the specters of mortality that haunt us? In "Night Side Songs," the Lazours reveal how much can be accomplished together, and in song.

JoAnn Falletta, music director for the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, will conduct "Francis: An Oratorio in Nine Scenes" Oct. 10 and 11. The oratorio brings together music composed by Richard Danielpour and a Fransiscan-inspired libretto by Franciscan Sr. Margaret Carney. (Steve J. Sherman)

St. Francis' messages shared through music at oratorio debut

Franciscan Sr. Margaret Carney wrote the libretto for "Francis: An Oratorio in Nine Scenes." Performances with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra are set for Oct. 10 and 11.

ByJulie A. Ferraro
Brandi Carlile (right) performs with Monique Ross (far left) and Chauntee Ross of SistaStrings during the 55th annual Songwriters Hall of Fame Induction and Awards Gala at the Marriott Marquis Hotel on Thursday, June 11, 2026, in New York. (AP/Invision/Evan Agostini)

Finding communion at a Brandi Carlile concert

After a Brandi Carlile concert, and with her own son learning an instrument, one mother reflects on the holiness of sharing a collective experience with other human beings.

ByBritt Luby
A crowd gathers in the square in front of the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris on Aug. 26, 1944, awaiting the arrival of Gen. Charles de Gaulle after Paris was liberated from the Germans. (Wikimedia Commons/CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain/Préfecture de Police)

As Pope Leo heads to Notre Dame, a brief history of the cathedral's cultural relevance

When the pope visits the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris this week, he'll see a church that has stood as a religious and cultural French landmark for nearly 900 years. 

ByVanessa R. Corcoran

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Book Reviews

Stephanie Sy-Quia's debut novel paints forbidden love against Vatican II backdrop

'Sister Act' and the gift of Blackness in the church

The Ste. Genevieve County Sheriff's Office and Detention Center March 7, 2026, in Ste. Genevieve, Mo. The facility also serves as an ICE detention center. (OSV News/St. Louis Review/Jacob Wiegand)

Monday Starter: St. Joseph Sisters stand against ICE, defend sacraments for detainees

Plus, a sister in Argentina is sentenced to 20 years for abusing hearing-impaired children, and the Sisters of St. Martha in Canada give up the hospital the congregation founded.

Sr. Indra Monterroso Padilla, of the Bethlemite Sisters, Daughters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, lights a candle with laywoman Martha Calderon at a chapel in El Paraíso, El Salvador, where women religious and laywomen gathered Sept. 12, 2026, to keep the work of the synod alive. (GSR photo/Rhina Guidos)

Catholic sisters and laywomen lead efforts to put synodality into practice in El Salvador

"As women, we don't walk alone; together we shape history to help other women find freedom and build community," Sr. Ivania Blandón Montenegro said. "Synodality is exactly that."

ByRhina Guidos
Children are served their school meal at a school in India in this 2017 photograph. (OSV News/Courtesy Mary's Meals)
Voices of Sisters

Nations of the world have forgotten responsibility toward the less privileged

The global world is becoming less accountable. We are losing our ethos as nations who once reached out as a moral responsibility to the less privileged.

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Srs. Rocío García Villegas, Christine Masivo and Angella Rwezaula, participants in the Pentecost Project, are pictured during their communications training at the Vatican News studios in the Dicastery for Communication at the Vatican. (Courtesy of Sr. Rocío García Villegas)
Voices of Sisters

For one Catholic sister, communication becomes a missionary vocation

Horizons - "There are stories that don't seek the spotlight," writes Sr. Rocío García Villegas. "They just need someone who has the courage to stop, look at them and not walk right past them."

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