Courtney Mares

The Vatican meeting of the world's bishops' conference presidents and the heads of Eastern Catholic churches marking the 10th anniversary of Amoris Laetitia concluded on the evening of Oct. 14 with prayers for Pope Leo XIV's recovery from lung cancer surgery.

Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, the newly elected dean of the College of Cardinals, presided over the closing Mass Oct. 14 for the Vatican's meeting on marriage and family, delivering a homily Pope Leo XIV had prepared before undergoing surgery for newly diagnosed lung cancer.

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

The Vatican announced Sept. 22 that University of Notre Dame professor John Cavadini has been selected as the recipient of the 2026 Ratzinger Prize.

The Nov. 6-17 trip will be the first papal visit to Latin America of Leo's pontificate and his longest international journey to date. 

The new Vatican coins are the first in nearly a decade to feature a pope's face since Francis requested in 2017 that his portrait no longer appear on Vatican coins.

Chiclayo is expected to be one of the most closely watched stops since Leo served as bishop of the diocese from 2015 to 2023.

On Christmas Eve 1963, Ernest Simoni,, then a young priest, was arrested by the communist regime of Enver Hoxha after offering a Mass for the soul of assassinated U.S. President John F. Kennedy.

The July 29 concert was organized by Bocelli's charitable foundation to take place at the Vatican's Borgo Laudato Si' gardens in Castel Gandolfo. 

Pope Leo XIV said the conscience of just one person can "be worth the entire world" when it comes to preventing a nuclear catastrophe, in a new book foreword that also quotes an unpublished Bob Dylan song about the atomic bomb.

Pope Leo XIV spent what is traditionally his weekly day off on Tuesday issuing a flurry of legislation and appointments June 30, overhauling the Vatican's financial watchdog agency, revising the governing structure of the Vicariate of Rome and making several appointments in the Roman Curia.

Pope Leo XIV has named Sr. Alessandra Smerilli prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, the Vatican announced June 30, making her the latest woman elevated to lead a major Vatican office under the new pontificate.

Pulitzer Prize winners, a Nobel laureate, celebrated novelists and authors from nearly a dozen countries met at the Vatican for an audience with Pope Leo XIV, who reflected on the importance of books to reveal who we are and "our inner dialogue with God."

Pope Leo XIV met with Peruvian President José María Balcázar at the Vatican June 18 for a nearly two-hour discussion, after which the president revealed details of a possible papal trip to Peru in November.

Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the influential churchman who shaped Catholic life in Italy for nearly two decades as both vicar of Rome and president of the Italian bishops' conference, died June 16 at age 95.

Pope Leo XIV told Catholic university leaders on June 3 that they have a responsibility to instill in their students a passion for "not only intellectual truth, but the truth that is Christ himself."

Pope Leo XIV praised Venerable Fulton Sheen on June 1 as "a light of faith, hope, and love" whose radio and television broadcasts brought the Gospel to millions of Americans — including the pope himself as a child.

Pope Leo XIV met the leadership of Catholic Charities USA in an audience at the Vatican on May 4, offering words of encouragement to one of the country's largest disaster relief networks as it navigates growing demand for food and basic services to aid the poor in the United States.

It will be the first time that a pope has carried the cross for every station in the Via Crucis since the tradition was revived at the site more than six decades ago.