We start the year with a feeling of vertigo before a period that we presume will give us a lot of work. The end of the year has been very turbulent in old Europe, it seems there is a desire to ‘stir up trouble’. A new year begins and much attention is paid to how the pontificate of Leo XIV will be defined. On January 7 and 8, a Consistory will be held to discuss it, which will serve to better understand the pontificate. The Pope will take his first government decisions, plan his next trips and, most importantly, publish—what is expected—his first encyclical, whose main theme should be peace and include a substantial section on artificial intelligence.
Pope Leo XIV developed in his homily on the first day of the year a reflection centered on the beginning of the year as a concrete possibility of «new life», in a peace that is born from God’s blessing and from human freedom. He recalled St. John Paul II and his interpretation of the mystery of Bethlehem: «the disarming tenderness of the Child», the poverty and humble simplicity of Mary and Joseph that transform the shepherds into «messengers of salvation». And he took up again, once more from John Paul II, the image of the gifts of the Jubilee: forgiveness received and given, the martyrs, the cry of the poor, the saving presence of God in history, up to the sending to «go out again» to proclaim the Gospel and «revitalize history and cultures» with the salvific message. The final task was entrusted to a gesture: approaching the manger, «the place of peace ‘disarmed and disarming’ par excellence», a place of blessing and remembrance of the wonders of the Lord in the history of salvation and in personal life. From there, Leo XIV concluded, to go out again like the witnesses of the cave, «glorifying and praising God» for what was seen and heard: a purpose for the coming months and for the whole Christian life.
The Italian President Sergio Mattarella sent a message to Pope Leo XIV on the occasion of the World Day of Peace, reiterating the need to overcome conflicts. He recalled the words spoken by Paul VI in October 1965 before the United Nations General Assembly: «No more war». Those words «must resonate and warn us», because at that time there existed «the imminent threat of nuclear apocalypse», while today conflicts «condition the lives of millions of men and women in multiple ways, from the traditional to the most sophisticated and nuanced». «We have the duty to resist this dark inertia, directed toward the abysses of history that humanity has already experienced tragically» and we must do so «with the utmost speed». «In its etymological sense, ‘to govern’ means ‘to steer the helm'». «If one follows unfavorable winds and yields to fears and the most irrational impulses, shipwreck is inevitable». But all «are called to do their part to ensure that peace is just and lasting, because at its center is the supreme value of human life». This «is not a utopia for naive optimists, but must be understood as a prerequisite for the very survival of humanity».
Paul Richard Gallagher, Secretary of the Vatican for Relations with States and International Organizations of the Holy See in an interview with SIR on the occasion of the World Day of Peace: «The greatest risk for 2026 is the normalization of the emergency. I think, in particular, of several areas of sub-Saharan Africa, of populations affected by forgotten conflicts, of the humanitarian consequences of climate crises, which exacerbate existing tensions. Even some situations in the Middle East run the risk of being interpreted only strategically, losing sight of the human impact». «The foci of open conflict have multiplied and spread so much over time that there is almost no longer space in public attention for ‘minor’ crises, such as poverty, corruption, discrimination and human exploitation».
Juan Cruz Villalón has disappeared from the scene with the death of Pope Francis, he is the Argentine priest who accompanied Pope Francis until his last days and was one of his closest collaborators in the Vatican. Villalón was ordained a priest in November 2011 by Jorge Bergoglio, when he was still Archbishop of Buenos Aires. The relationship between them went beyond the strictly institutional and was reflected in multiple public gestures of closeness. After the death of Pope Francis, he shared on his social networks a farewell message: «Mission accomplished, Holy Father». Months later, in October 2025, Villalón returned to his native Argentina, today we have an interview in local media that goes no further. The impression is that the image of Pope Francis has faded very quickly and that only obligatory, courtesy and institutional memories remain.
During all that time in the seminary, was there ever any doubt in your mind about his vocation to the priesthood? «In our minds, no. In his, I don’t know, because I never asked him: ‘Are you sure this is the path you want to take?’. I never did». «The summer visits continued, we had summer jobs, so we didn’t have much time to be together. He worked in a store that sold boat parts, engines, propellers and things like that. He did that throughout college». After Villanova, he went to Rome to continue his studies. Then he was sent to the Augustinian mission in Chulucanas, Peru. Do you remember what he told you about his first impressions of Peru? «I think poverty affected him, and I think it still affects him today, seeing people who are not only poor, but have no voice in the world. And I think one of his goals is precisely this: to try to give voice to those who don’t have it, or at least try to represent them with his work».
Mario Proietti shares his reflections amid the hustle and bustle taking cue from an interview with Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco: «There is too much silence about persecution for political interests. Faith? It scares». The interview avoids anger or dramatic scenarios to make way for an observation that carries more weight than many analyses: the silence around persecution is the result of political interests. It is a deliberate silence, fruit of calculation, convenience and fear of exposure. Bagnasco immediately clarifies that it is not only about distant lands, for which it is easy to feel emotion from afar; the phenomenon directly concerns the West and Europe. The persecution takes on a different character. Instead of taking physical life, it empties the soul and manipulates minds through a form of courteous and presentable violence, often disguised as neutrality. Instead of openly prohibiting, this culture allows faith to evaporate. The proclaimed tolerance turns into practiced intolerance: faith is accepted as long as it remains a private feeling or popular tradition, but becomes uncomfortable when it reminds us that the human being cannot build himself completely alone. The nativity scene is the perfect example, it disturbs precisely because it reminds, without needing to provoke or demand. We face two opposing silences: one full of noises and another full of omissions. In the middle, a faith remains that avoids demanding privileges and, at the same time, refuses to become invisible. In an era that prefers noise to truth, this reminder becomes unbearable.
The Holy Year will officially end on January 6 with the closing of the Holy Door of St. Peter’s. As if the exceptional nature of the event, which occurs every twenty-five years, were not enough, this year’s Jubilee had an additional unique element: the death of Pope Francis and the beginning of the pontificate of Leo XIV. Official figures will be published, for now, the Roman retail sector has downplayed the Jubilee with a lukewarm response. «There has been an increase in activity in businesses near the Vatican, but it has not extended to the rest of Rome». The president of Roman hospitality analyzes hotel data. The latest municipal data show that between January and October there were 19.1 million arrivals (3.7% more than last year), of which 10 million were foreigners, for a total of 44.1 million overnight stays (also 3.18% more). Events of this magnitude, instead of attracting people, «scare them. If you were going to spend a weekend in Paris, you certainly wouldn’t choose the month of the Olympics, unless you were specifically going to see them». And it seems the same has happened in Rome: «Part of the void left by international tourism has been compensated by tourism linked to the Jubilee». When we read that there would be 40 million arrivals, we are actually talking about the same figure as the previous year, only the people have changed. The evaluation of the economic impact of the event is devastating: «Mediocre, we had more or less the same attendance as last year. Perhaps there was a slight drop in revenues, given that religious tourists spend a little less than traditional tourists». Despite the overall figures not being so exorbitant, the hotel and retail sectors hope that the Jubilee will be a catalyst for the future. «The fact that we have been in the world’s news for a whole year will bring, and is already bringing, positive signals». «A city like Rome certainly doesn’t need media advertising to attract tourists, but in the end, everything helps».
And we finish with an interesting article from Vatican Reporting . The problem with artificial intelligence is that it leaves you alone. It prefers personal incompetence, compensated by an algorithm, over the ability to truly know. Artificial intelligence, used as a substitute for information, does not foster personal growth. It simply gives people the illusion of knowledge, enveloping them in an «information overload» that does not lead to true knowledge and does not lead to awareness. Man loses his humanity, deconstructs himself, becomes a monad that seeks something he doesn’t have, because it no longer exists. It is a man whose soul is absorbed by fragments, and who lacks relational intelligence, human contact and the ability to understand through empathy.
Dehumanization surrounds us and we have gone from the idea that children are a workforce, to the idea that children for a woman, and not only, are an obstacle to work itself. The idea of having to decide how, when and in what way to have children (and perhaps even choose them, because eugenics was already being talked about in the 1930s, and it was only stopped after Nazism made the term unacceptable). We have moved on to chemical contraception that turns sex into something merely recreational (Carl Djerassi, the inventor of the contraceptive pill, declared in a 2014 interview that sex would no longer be used for procreation ), reaches the idea that everything must be processed by a machine, and that knowledge is useless if all the world’s knowledge is condensed into an algorithm. The individual is powerless against all this. He is a technocrat because he can do nothing but praise technology without understanding it, thus losing sight of his true self.
What is the role of the Church today? I think that today, more than ever, the role of the Catholic Church is to honor its name. Church comes from ekklesia, which means community. And being a community is what has saved the Church, kept it afloat, allowed it to overcome tremendous upheavals, resist hostile governments and overcome moments of pride, always present in stories of two thousand years. The community considers human beings as human beings, spreads culture as a living space and part of a human development that cannot but be integral, and connects people to each other. This communication is essential to overcome the dictatorship of relativism, which has become the dictatorship of the dominant current. Artificial intelligence is the truth of data, but data lack empathy; they only have a reading, a statistical reading that does not always tell the truth. The Catholic Church is the entity that can build a civilization of love because it is born from a community gathered around the Eucharist, that is why it still has much to say. Being Church today means looking to the future, training philosophers who can guide the structures of artificial intelligence, training priests who return, first of all, to celebrate and put Christ at the center, starting from essential realities, because they are the ones that can really be touched.
«…I am not worthy to untie the strap of his sandal».
Good reading.