Among the new appointments to the Council for the Economy are two young women in their thirties with impressive resumes: Gisela Liechtenstein and Elena Wettstein Principato. Both have aroused considerable curiosity. They’ve even made headlines.  The attention they’ve drawn is essentially of the same kind as arose in 2021, when Pope Francis reshuffled the [...]

The big news this week was the Vatican’s confirmation – long expected – of Pope Leo XIV’s November journey to Argentina, Uruguay, and Peru, but before he undertakes his three-nation tour of South America, the pope will travel to France.

The visit to la fille aînée de l’Église is scheduled for Spetember 25-28, and [...]

Leo XIV has returned to the Vatican after a month-long vacation in Castel Gandolfo, and a series of important decisions await him. They aren’t all urgent matters, but what he decides in each of them will tell us a lot about how the pope intends to shape his pontificate.

These decisions will be subjected [...]

The small traditionalist schism of the SSPX, with all its aftermath, has highlighted how the unity in the Church that Leo XIV set as the primary goal of his pontificate is still far from being achieved.

Indeed, the debate within the Church is still too heated, so much so that it’s difficult to understand [...]

In a rare occurrence this past week, official Vatican media weighed in on a controversy surrounding some recent remarks by US Ambassador Brian Burch, who is his country’s diplomatic representative to the Holy See.

Vatican media sought to reiterate that “The Pope always speaks as a shepherd.”

That was the title of an [...]

Pope Leo XIV’s visit to the US ambassador’s residence to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the United States spoke volumes.

It was also a clear sign of how much this pontificate has to say – and it’s much more than one might think.

Speaking to Italian media, US Ambassador Brian Burch said the [...]

Leo XIV has made unity his guiding principle, so dealing with a schism will not be easy, but schism is what came to face the pope last week

Leo found himself confronted with the schism of the Priestly Society of Saint Pius X, when the breakaway traditionalist group illicitly ordained four bishops on July [...]

The second consistory of Leo XIV indicated, in a certain sense, that the transition from one pontificate to the next is underway, but not yet complete.

It is not certain it will ever be.

For Leo XIV, the consistory meetings appear to be more of a broad consultation than an instrument of governance, a [...]

At 94, already wheelchair-bound and in poor health, Cardinal Camillo Ruini found himself experiencing the third conclave of his life as a cardinal, this time no longer as a cardinal elector.

No one would have faulted him had he chosen to sit this one out.

Ruini, however, felt it was his duty to ensure [...]

It’s perhaps a little too much to say that Leo XIV’s pontificate began on the Iberian Peninsula, but his recent six-day sojourn in Spain was a clear sign of the kind of pontificate to expect from him.

It will be a pontificate that looks to the peripheries of the faith, as Pope Francis did [...]