Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana, a long supporter of Trump, says president’s feud with the pope is a ‘distraction’
A Republican lawmaker has condemned what he refers to as Donald Trump’s “holy war” against Pope Leo XIV.
Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana, a long supporter of Trump and the ultraconservative Maga movement, condemned the president’s attacks on the pope during a Fox News interview on Saturday.
Continue reading...Pontiff makes first papal visit to country as he starts 11-day tour that will also include stops in Cameroon and Angola
Pope Leo XIV has arrived in Algeria for the first papal visit to the country, calling for peace on the opening stop of a tour of Africa that signals the continent’s growing importance to the Catholic church.
The 11-day trip, which will include stops in Cameroon, Angola and Equatorial Guinea, is the longest by Pope Leo since being elected to the papacy in May last year.
Continue reading...Leader of Catholic church says he will continue to speak out against war after president’s extraordinary criticism
Pope Leo said he did not fear the Trump administration and would continue to speak out against war after Donald Trump delivered an extraordinary broadside against him in which he said he did not think the Chicago-born pontiff was “doing a very good job”, while also suggesting he should “stop catering to the radical left”.
In remarks that have been widely criticised, the US president used a lengthy social media post to sharply criticise Leo while he flew from Florida to Washington on Sunday night, then continued in comments on the tarmac to reporters. “I’m not a fan of Pope Leo,” he said.
Continue reading...Pontiff’s unusually pointed comments come after Pete Hegseth’s prayer for violence against enemies ‘who deserve no mercy’
Pope Leo has said God ignores the prayers of leaders who wage war and have “hands full of blood”, in an apparent rebuke to the Trump administration.
The pontiff made the comments on Sunday as thousands of US troops arrived in the Middle East and days after the US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, prayed for violence against enemies who deserved “no mercy”.
Continue reading...Decision to choose small, wealthy – but very Catholic – state for first European trip has baffled some Vatican observers
Pope Leo will travel to Monaco, the semi-enclave famous for casinos and superyachts, on Saturday on his first European trip since being elected pontiff, causing bemusement among some Vatican observers, not least because it comes 488 years after the last papal visit.
Leo will travel from the Vatican by helicopter for the one-day trip, and will be greeted at Monaco’s heliport by Prince Albert and his wife, Princess Charlene, before being taken to the palace, which has been the residence of the Grimaldi dynasty since the 13th century. It is the first time a pontiff has visited Monaco since Pope Paul III in 1538.
Continue reading...Pontiff tells politicians and religious heads they must persevere with peace efforts despite facing ‘highly complex, conflictual’ situation
Pope Leo has urged political leaders in Lebanon to make peace their highest priority in a forceful appeal as he is visiting the country, which remains a target of Israeli airstrikes, on the second leg of his first overseas trip as Catholic leader.
Leo, the first US pope, arrived in Beirut on Sunday from a four-day visit to Turkey where he said that humanity’s future was at risk because of the world’s unusual number of bloody conflicts, and condemned violence in the name of religion.
Continue reading...Pontiff backs statement by US bishops condemning raids and mass deportations under Trump administration
Pope Leo has reiterated his disapproval of Donald Trump’s immigration policies, saying foreigners in the US are being treated in an “extremely disrespectful way”.
Leo, the first US pontiff in the history of the Catholic church, made the remarks in response to questions about a statement adopted last week during a special assembly of US bishops that criticised the Trump administration’s mass deportations and lamented the fear and anxiety caused by immigration raids.
Continue reading...As pontiff prepares for visit of King Charles, the contours of his papacy are slowly becoming apparent
When King Charles meets Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican this week, the two leaders are likely to discuss pressing global issues as well as sharing a historic moment of prayer.
In the face of volatility and rising nationalism, Leo, the first North American chosen to lead the Roman Catholic church, has begun to outline the contours of his papacy after a low-key start to his five-month-old papacy.
Continue reading...Pontiff expected to appeal for peace across the Middle East and speak about the persecution of Christians in region
Pope Leo’s debut overseas trip will be to Turkey and Lebanon, where he is expected to make appeals for peace across the Middle East, the Vatican has announced.
Leo, who was elected pontiff in May after the death of Pope Francis, will visit Turkey between 27 and 30 November and Lebanon from 30 November until 2 December.
Continue reading...King and Queen Camilla to join pontiff in late October amid jubilee year celebrations, says Buckingham Palace
King Charles III and Queen Camilla will make a state visit to meet Pope Leo XIV for the first time at the Vatican next month, Buckingham Palace has said.
The trip in late October will come about six months after the royal couple visited Leo’s predecessor, Pope Francis, shortly before his death in April.
Continue reading...Carlo Acutis, who died in 2006 and built websites to spread Catholic message, to become first millennial saint
In a see-through safe carved into a wall behind the altar of a chapel in northern Rome lies a collection of relics of Carlo Acutis. These include a splinter from his wooden bed, a fragment of a jumper and a piece of the sheet used to cover him after his death. Locks of his hair are on display in other churches in the Italian capital and beyond.
Acutis, the London-born Italian who on Sunday will become the Catholic church’s first millennial saint, built websites to spread Catholic teaching, earning him the nickname “God’s Influencer” after his death, aged 15, from leukaemia.
Continue reading...Latest deaths announced by Gaza health ministry bring starvation toll to 313, including 119 children
Ten Palestinians including two children have died from starvation in the last 24 hours, health authorities in Gaza said on Wednesday, as Pope Leo XIV demanded that Israel stop its “collective punishment” of the population in the besieged territory.
At least 313 people have died from hunger, including 119 children, since the war in Gaza began and Israel intensified its siege on the Palestinian territory. Last week a UN-backed monitoring body confirmed that Gaza was in the throes of famine and warned that without more aid, increasing numbers of people would lose access to food.
Continue reading...Pontiff presides over culmination of ‘Catholic Woodstock’ that drew young people from 146 countries
Pope Leo XIV presided over a mass in Rome for more than a million young people on Sunday, the culmination of a pilgrimage that has drawn Catholics from across the world.
“Aspire to great things, to holiness, wherever you are. Do not settle for less,” the pope told the crowd.
Continue reading...Israel grants access after ‘stray’ tank round kills three people and wounds Catholic priest
Israel has granted two senior Christian leaders rare access to Gaza after an Israeli strike on the Palestinian territory’s only Roman Catholic church killed three people.
Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Catholic Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, and his Greek Orthodox counterpart, Theophilos III, led a delegation on Friday to the Holy Family Church, whose shelling the day before triggered international condemnation.
Continue reading...US state department says on website it may ‘actively review’ status of Americans who ‘serve as a foreign head of state’
Pope Leo XIV’s election as the first US-born leader of the Roman Catholic church elevated him to the rare, legally thorny, position of being an American citizen who now is also a foreign head of state.
Born in Chicago as Robert Prevost in 1955, the new pope for the past decade has held dual citizenship in the US and Peru, where he spent time as a missionary and bishop.
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Flood watches in place for rivers in Hunter and mid-north coast
Due to the prolonged period of wet weather for New South Wales – with rain expected to fall across the same regions for several days in a row – flood watches are in place for many rivers through the Hunter and the mid-north coast districts, where minor to moderate flooding is anticipated throughout the week, Hines says.
… and we can’t rule out the chance that one or two of them could see major flooding in the coming days.
Continue reading...Volodymyr Zelenskyy and JD Vance among 150,000 present as Leo says he wants Catholic church to be ‘leaven of unity’
Pope Leo XIV said he wanted the Catholic church to be a “small leaven of unity” in a time of “too much discord and too many wounds”, during his inaugural papal mass attended by world leaders including the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and the US vice-president, JD Vance.
Calling for more love and unity, Leo said the church’s “true authority” was the charity of Christ. He said: “It is never a question of capturing others by force, by religious propaganda or by means of power. Instead, it is always and only a question of loving as Jesus did.”
Continue reading...Traders anticipating increase in high-spending Americans are already working up Leo-themed beers and ice-creams
Even before the chimney on top of the Sistine Chapel emitted its last puff of white smoke, signalling to the world that the Roman Catholic church had a new pope, Atlante Star, a hotel with a privileged view over St Peter’s Basilica from its rooftop terrace, began to receive inquiries about room availability over the following few days.
Then, about an hour later, when the Chicago-born cardinal Robert Prevost was declared Pope Leo XIV, the inquiries turned into bookings as the tourists, mostly from the US, rushed to secure a place to stay in Rome in time for the pontiff’s inaugural Sunday mass on 18 May.
Continue reading...New pontiff also urges a ceasefire and humanitarian aid in Gaza and welcomes truce between India and Pakistan
Pope Leo XIV has called for a just and lasting peace in Ukraine and pleaded for an end to global conflicts, which he likened to a “third world war in pieces”.
In his first Sunday address at the Vatican, the new pontiff urged an immediate ceasefire and humanitarian aid in Gaza and the release of all hostages. He also welcomed the truce between India and Pakistan and referenced the end of the second world war in 1945.
Continue reading...A fraught history of race and immigration connect the new pope with his homeland
Pope Leo XIV, who on Thursday was elected as the first-ever US-born leader of the Roman Catholic church, has a familial bloodline that reflects his homeland’s fraught relationship with race – and why the nation’s stature as a melting pot of origins has long endured, records unearthed by genealogists show.
The maternal grandfather of 69-year-old Robert Prevost, the newly minted pope, was evidently born abroad in Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic, according to birth records that professional genealogist Chris Smothers cited to ABC News in a recent report. When Leo’s grandfather, Joseph Martinez, obtained an 1887 marriage license to wed the future pope’s grandmother, Louise Baquié, he listed his birthplace as Haiti, which at the time was the same territory as Santo Domingo, Smothers noted.
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