It’s Sunday, and May 3rd. No matter how much they insist on reforms, there are some that don’t take root, and today in half the world it’s the Feast of the May Cross, the feast of the Invention of the Holy Cross. The other half that doesn’t celebrate the Cross also doesn’t celebrate the apostles Philip and James, neither the first nor the third. Even on Sunday, the news doesn’t let us rest, and today we have another interesting day ahead.
The new auxiliaries of Rome.
In yesterday’s ‘local’ news, Pope Leo XIV ordained four new auxiliary bishops for his diocese of Rome, in the Basilica of St. John Lateran. The ceremony took place on the eve of the fifth Sunday of Easter. During his homily, Leo XIV recalled that the Church of Rome has a singular vocation to universality and charity, thanks to its special bond with the Risen and living Christ, the foundation of the spiritual building of living stones formed by the holy people of God. To each of the new bishops, a territorial sector of the diocese was assigned: north, south, east, west, and the historic center. What happens in Rome is never local, we have four new auxiliaries who are from the Roman clergy, a real novelty after years of marginalizing the native clergy. EThe Pope emphasized that the Church must always be on the side of the «discarded»: «The rejected stone is the heart of the messianic proclamation, directed to those whom society discarded and continues to discard». «It is the heart of our proclamation, of our mission». To the four new bishops: «I encourage you to approach the rejected stones of this city and proclaim to them that in Christ, our cornerstone, no one is excluded from actively forming part of the holy building that is the Church and the fraternity among human beings». A remembrance of Pope Francis was not missing: «To be a Church «field hospital», to be street pastors, to have the material and existential peripheries in our hearts».
The new appointments come after the decision taken in November 2025 to reconstitute the Central Sector of the Diocese of Rome, abolished by Pope Francis in October 2014. The newly consecrated are Father Stefano Sparapani, 69 years old, parish priest of San Basilio and episcopal vicar of the northern sector of the city, to whom the titular see of Bisenzio has been assigned; Father Alessandro Zenobbi, 56 years old, parish priest of Santa Lucia and episcopal vicar of the western sector, with the titular see of Biccari; Father Andrea Carlevale, 54 years old, parish priest of San Giovanni Battista de Rossi, in the Appio-Latino area, with the titular see of Atella; and Father Marco Valenti, 64 years old, parish priest of the Transfiguration of Our Lord Jesus Christ, with the titular see of Arpi.
The new appointments mark a return to stability and normality in the pastoral management of the capital: «Dear brothers, from today you will be auxiliary bishops of this Church, whose care I have received as a gift; together with the Cardinal Vicar you will be able to help me to be a reflection of the Good Shepherd for the Roman people and to preside over the charity of the entire holy people of God scattered throughout the earth». All the new auxiliary bishops come from the Roman clergy, a significant detail.
The doors of the bishops must always remain open to welcome priests, deacons, religious men and women, laity dedicated to the apostolate, so that they never feel alone. The new auxiliary bishops must accompany them, support them, and help them to rekindle hope in their respective ministries and to feel part of the same mission, observed the bishop of Rome. May the poor of Rome, the pilgrims, and the visitors who come from all parts of the world find in the inhabitants of this city, in its institutions, and in its pastors, that motherhood which is the authentic face of the Church.
Audience with the Papal Foundation.
Leo XIV said this during the audience with the Papal Foundation: «In addition to promoting the evangelical mission of the Church, the Foundation’s commitment also contributes to fostering peace at the regional and local level». «Saint Paul VI wrote that development is the new name of peace. With this he meant that true harmony is not simply the absence of conflict, but arises from the active promotion of authentic and integral human development». Therefore, «promoting real progress through concrete initiatives like those supported by the Foundation is a sure way to foster harmony among communities and individuals».
The employees of the Italian Episcopal Conference.
In the Hall of Blessings of the Vatican Apostolic Palace, the Holy Father Leo XIV received in audience the employees of the Italian Episcopal Conference, accompanied by the President, Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, the General Secretary, and the Directors of the Offices and Services. During the meeting, the Pontiff addressed those present, emphasizing three key words: service, belonging, and mission . «I would like to emphasize the importance, for every institution, of each person’s fidelity to their own task, to the most ordinary commitments, a carefully followed procedure, a well-prepared meeting, the patience of a prolonged moment of listening, the dedication to responding to a request, order, and even the care of the facilities». «They are simple things, but useful for the good of all and great before God. In the life of the Church, nothing is insignificant if done with faith, with love, and with a spirit of communion».
Leo XIV recalled that the offices of the CEI «are not structures that are ends in themselves, but instruments with which assistance is provided to the bishops and the churches in Italy, so that the bonds of communion are strong and the ecclesial fabric is compact, rich in the Gospel, and fruitful in gestures of closeness». «We live in an era of profound changes, in the family, in schools, in work, in communication, in social participation, in the transmission of faith».
The aftershocks of Mrs. Mullally’s visit.
Without special novelties, but the topic remains in the media and in general the solemn display of affections deployed for the case has not been well received, and not for others. Was it a natural gesture of diplomatic welcome or a misguided act of false ecumenism that further solidified the division, when the Holy See gave a warm welcome to Sarah Mullally this week? Since Leo returned to Rome after concluding his trip to Africa, the debate has focused almost exclusively on this topic. With a packed agenda of audiences and commitments the next day, but everything takes a backseat to the news that Mullally, the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, is embarking on a four-day trip to Rome and the Holy See.
Changes in Moscow.
In numerical terms, the Catholic Church in Russia is not a big deal; it might seem like a small diocese, with about 70,000 Catholics, 50 diocesan priests, and as many religious. About 90 religious and about 60 nuns, with sixty-three parishes. The curious fact is that all this moves in the midst of almost sixty million inhabitants in Northern European Russia. The Archdiocese of the Mother of God in Moscow has its archbishop in Moscow and an auxiliary who lives in St. Petersburg, Msgr. Dubinin who now assumes as apostolic administrator of the Mother of God in Moscow. The Pope accepted the resignation from the pastoral government of the Metropolitan Archdiocese of the Mother of God in Moscow (Russian Federation), presented by Archbishop Paolo Pezzi. From what we are told, he announced it to him personally, who at his 65 years showed a visibly exhausted appearance. In recent dates, Dubinin, of the Conventual Franciscans, is approaching Rome and everything points to him possibly being the successor. It is undoubtedly a position of great importance regardless of the number of Catholics and priests. The Vatican’s diplomacy has never taken into consideration the local church and its relations with the Russian government, before and now, have always been direct. The presence of a stable nunciature in Moscow may be changing things and starting to consider Russian Catholics as ‘ours’ and not a hindrance to good relations with the complicated Russian government and ‘its’ Orthodox Church to which so many things unite us.
Are new tensions brewing between the White House and the Holy See?
Leo XIV has appointed Msgr. Evelio Menjivar-Ayala as bishop of Wheeling-Charleston, in West Virginia. He is a prelate who, in the late 1980s, left El Salvador as a teenager to escape the civil war. He then entered the United States illegally in 1990, obtaining humanitarian protection a few weeks later, and subsequently a visa. Finally, he acquired citizenship about twenty years ago. Ayala, last year, also signed an article critical of the migration policies carried out by the current U.S. administration, accusing the latter of carrying out «operations of dubious legality».
Ayala’s appointment did not go unnoticed and was interpreted as a jab from the pontiff toward the White House. Let us not forget that, last month, tensions were recorded between Washington and the Holy See. The U.S. president had initially accused Leone of «weakness» on crime and foreign policy matters, while the pope had replied that «he was not afraid of the Trump administration». A few days later, both had, in a way, poured water on the fire, trying to calm the tension. A tension that, now, with Ayala’s appointment, could grow again.
Tensions on immigration matters between the current U.S. president and the bishops are nothing new. Leaving aside Trump’s first term, last November, the U.S. Episcopal Conference criticized the hardening of the White House’s migration policy. It should be borne in mind that a considerable part of irregular immigrants in the U.S. is Latin American and, therefore, often Catholic: it is no coincidence that approximately one fifth of the people at risk of being deported from the United States belong to the Catholic Church.
According to an analysis by the National Catholic Register, U.S. manual laborers are showing themselves increasingly distant from institutional churches, both Catholic and Protestant, considering them linked to higher social classes than their own. In fact, according to this analysis, the wave of conversions to Catholicism in the U.S. mainly affects office workers. The working class of the Rust Belt would therefore be developing a kind of anti-system sentiment with religious undertones not very different from that recorded in the 19th century, in the era of the Jacksonian revolution.
Trump, who has made the fight against irregular immigrants one of his battlehorses for the 2024 elections, has won the working-class vote precisely by emphasizing one issue: that of wage reduction that illegal immigration usually brings. The current president clearly won the Catholic vote by taking advantage above all of the unpopularity of the Biden Administration (and especially Kamala Harris) among Americans belonging to the Catholic Church.
The line of fracture between Trump and the bishops is deep, but this does not mean, however, that said tension directly impacts the electorate. According to a Fox News poll, at the end of April Catholic support for the president had increased three points compared to March. In addition, some data collected by the Pew Research Center suggest that white Catholics continue to support Trump majority, who, on the other hand, would have more difficulties with Hispanics. It is not easy to find a meeting point between the White House and the bishops on migration issues. The one who will be in charge of trying to find a solution will probably be JD Vance, who, in addition to being Catholic, is also the political-electoral expression of the working world of the Rust Belt. Republicans could set as a priority the expulsion of illegal immigrants with criminal records. But U.S. bishops should not ignore, on migration matters, the malaise of a sector of society, the working class, that suffers the social and economic repercussions of irregular immigration.
The no to twisted blessings.
Pope Leo XIV, when he wants to be clear, is, and in response to a journalist’s question during his flight back from his last trip to Africa, he rejected the blessing of homosexual unions, and for that the Church should be very grateful. It is not an easy task to contradict the common sense of contemporary Western society, exposing oneself to fierce criticism from the media and public opinion. Augustine Franer in Crisis Magazine goes further and focuses on the persistent influence of liberalism in the Holy See, an influence that raises questions about when—and if—it will finally be broken.
Before arriving at an explicit refusal, the Pope offered a preamble that Franer qualified as «quite superfluous, with a marked apologetic tone». Leo XIV observed that «we tend to think that when the Church speaks of morality, the only moral issue is sexuality», and added that, in his opinion, there are «much broader and more important issues, such as justice, equality, the freedom of men and women, and religious freedom». This approach denotes a lack of confidence in the fundamental truthfulness of the Church’s teachings. There is no reason to be ashamed of Catholic morality on sexuality, motivated by love and the protection of authentic human love. Delaying the response, or introducing it with implicit apologies, weakens the message even before it is pronounced. «When the truth backs you, there is nothing to fear».
Sexual issues are far from secondary to the great evils of our time. Abortion, divorce, fornication, homosexuality, gender dysphoria, pornography: all these phenomena are caused directly or indirectly by the neglect of the divine commandments on sexuality. By insisting on the material poverty of migrants and the Third World as a priority, the Pope would be committing the same error that liberals have made for centuries: neglecting the spiritual poverty of the West.
Franer then focuses on the liberal values enumerated by Leo XIV in his preamble, analyzing them one by one. The first is equality, which he defines as «the most idolized by liberals». Historically, he observes, equality has never been a fundamental value of the Church. Leo XIII himself—namesake of the current pontiff—recalled that Christian democracy «must safeguard the various distinctions and ranks that are indispensable in every well-ordered community», without pretending «to reduce all ranks to the same level». The hierarchy of the Church, the hierarchy of the universe itself, is founded on an inequality of position and capacity. The first sin, both of man and of the devil, was precisely the attempt to put oneself on equal footing with God.
The second liberal value examined is freedom, the etymological root of liberalism itself. Franer does not deny it, but redefines it according to the Catholic tradition: freedom is not an end, but a means. Edmund Burke warned that we must consider what people intend to do with their freedom before congratulating ourselves on it. If freedom is used to follow God’s commandments, it deserves praise; if it serves to choose evil, it becomes slavery. The modern liberal view of freedom, understood as unlimited license to do what one wants, is dangerous and deceptive.
The third value is religious freedom, which before the encyclical Dignitatis Humanae had never been a fundamental principle of Catholicism. Leo XIII condemned unlimited religious freedom without reservation, stating that justice «prohibits the State from treating different religions equally». Pius IX, in his Syllabus of Errors , qualified as erroneous the thesis that the best civil society is the one that does not distinguish between the true religion and the false ones. And Gregory XVI was even more blunt, considering unlimited freedom of conscience as «the shameful source of indifferentism».
There is clear in Leo XIV a sincere longing for justice and unity, and for that he can be praised. But the justice that must be sought must be God’s; and the unity that must be longed for must be unity with Christ, not adaptation to a fallen world. Only by following the divine commandments and exhorting sinners with charity can the true mission of the Church be fulfilled.
The future of the Traditional Mass.
Antonino Cambria in Lifesitenews , reports that Pope Leo XIV has not yet made a decision on the future of the Traditional Latin Mass, but is taking the necessary time to listen to all opinions before acting. So stated Elise Ann Allen, author of « Pope Leo XIV: The Biography» and Crux’s chief correspondent, during a conference held on Wednesday night at St. Vincent College. «He is a person who, by his personality and his experience in the world, does not easily fit into our traditional categories of right and left ». A «centrist man», according to the journalist, who seeks unity above all.
On the specific topic of the Tridentine Mass and the restrictions imposed by the motu proprio Traditionis Custodes of Pope Francis in 2021 , Allen was clear: Leo has not yet made a decision and intends to proceed with caution. «Right now he is listening. That’s what he told me. He is very clear that he does not want to rush. He understands that this is a controversial issue; he understands that people have very firm opinions about it » .
Since August 2025, Leo XIV has held approximately once a month audiences with personalities linked to the Tridentine Mass: among them, Bishop Athanasius Schneider and Cardinals Raymond Burke and Robert Sarah. In March, he also received sociologists Stephen Bullivant and Stephen Cranney, authors of a study showing that the vast majority of faithful of the Traditional Latin Mass fully accept Catholic doctrine and Vatican Council II, a fact that may have alleviated papal concerns about the «ideology» that sometimes infiltrates this area.
During his first year of pontificate he has sent signals in opposite directions. On a more open level: he allowed Cardinal Burke to celebrate a Latin Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica for the 2025 Summorum Pontificum Pilgrimage, after the Vatican under Francis prohibited that possibility in 2023 and 2024. He also granted two-year extensions to two diocesan communities of the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) in Cleveland and to a parish in Texas before their eventual suppression. On the more restrictive level, during his pontificate several bishops were able to impose severe limitations on the Traditional Mass in their dioceses, as happened in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Knoxville, Tennessee. Leo XIV also confirmed Cardinal Arthur Roche as head of the Dicastery for Divine Worship, a key figure in the implementation of Traditionis Custodes . Roche distributed to the cardinals, during the extraordinary consistory last January, a document that further hardened the restrictions, reaffirming that the Novus Ordo is the only legitimate expression of the Roman rite. Allen concludes with a reasoned prediction: «He will find his way, but the one he will follow will lead to unity, not division ». The pope will seek an original solution, different from those of his predecessors, one that does not generate greater polarization, but the moment is still uncertain.
The objection of conscience.
We have a book dedicated to the memory of Father Angelo Cavagna that collects texts and testimonies that illustrate, from various perspectives, his multifaceted work in promoting the objection of conscience, civil service, and popular non-violent defense. The goal was to foster greater awareness within the Church about the attitudes necessary to build peace through the rejection of war.
Before the Second Vatican Council, the Church expressed its rejection of the few openings that arose in the Catholic world—such as that developed by Luigi Sturzo after the «senseless slaughter» of the First World War—, which presented the objection of conscience as a way to overcome the violence of war. The conciliar constitution Gaudium et Spes introduced a first change. In it, it advocated that «the laws of the State should humanely foresee the case of those who, for reasons of conscience, refuse to bear arms, while accepting, however, some other form of service to the human community».
The change is prudent: «it seems equitable that the laws of the State…»; if not, above all, because it is part of a general stance that justifies the State’s recourse to compulsory military service. The Constitution states that, until the international community has effective instruments for the peaceful solution of controversies, «governments cannot be denied the right to legitimate defense». Therefore, those who, in the ranks of the armed forces, dedicate themselves to serving their country fulfill an ethically commendable function. The explicit praise for those who «renounce violence in the defense of their rights, resorting to means accessible to all» comes accompanied by a specific condition: this choice must never harm the political community.
The caution of Gaudium et Spes was reflected in the teaching of Paul VI. On the one hand, Montini expressed, in his encyclical Populorum Progressio of 1967 , deep satisfaction for the replacement of military service with civil service; on the other, in his message for the first World Day of Peace, on January 1, 1968, he censured, with a clear allusion to the young Americans who refused to be drafted for the Vietnam War, «the cowardice of those who fear having to give their lives in the service of their country and their brothers when they are committed to the defense of justice and freedom». The Vietnam War, evidently, seemed to him a defense of freedom against communist expansionism.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church, published in 1997 follows the traditional perspective of the theology of just war, however, it recognizes only one type: war in legitimate defense. While it imposes binding conditions on its legality, this approach reaffirms the moral value of military service in defense of the homeland. Nevertheless, for the first time, an official text of the Catholic magisterium proclaims the legality of disobedience to military superiors: «There is a moral obligation to resist orders that command genocide». In June 2005, the Compendium of the Catechism, drafted by a commission of cardinals created by Pope John Paul II three years earlier and presided over by the then prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Joseph Ratzinger, proclaims the «grave duty» of believers to contribute, even at the cost of their lives, to war in legitimate defense.
A decisive change in the message published by Pope Francis for the 2017 World Day of Peace. In the face of the prospect of a «fragmented third world war», which at any moment runs the risk of turning into an apocalyptic global conflict, the Argentine pontiff, convinced of the folly and futility of war, proclaims that the attitude of a Christian who wishes to be consistent with the Gospel must be based on «active non-violence». In the last years of his magisterium, Bergoglio again advocated a review of just war. Reiterating that war «is always a mistake», he pointed out that the level of armament achieved made the rational criteria that Christians used to legitimize the use of violent war unfeasible and advocated a review of the traditional doctrine of just war.
Leo XIV developed this stance. He supported the Vatican diplomacy, committed to promoting a multilateralism that does not question the principle of legitimate defense. It seems that the Holy See continues to resort to the instrument of just war in international relations, hoping that Christians, all Christians, will finally understand the demands of the Gospel for building peace. In the meantime, it has urged all States to recognize the right to conscientious objection, not only in the field of bioethics, on which its predecessors had insisted so much, but also in military service, in the name of the principle of non-violence.
The spiritual barbarians of the Vatican.
There are those with clear ideas and this is the warning to the apostate synodal Church. You speak ceaselessly of justice, inclusion, mercy, and listening, but God asks first: why do you proclaim His justice only to pervert it? Why do you proclaim His covenant while you secretly surrender to the pleasures of the devil, as if doing it behind His back? You bless confusion and impure sin that cries out to heaven and call it charity. You tolerate impurity and call it accompaniment. You gather in your perverse councils discussing how to adapt the Church to the world, while the world drags souls to hell. You have made peace with the thieves of doctrine and have become accomplices of the adulterers of the faith.
Your mouths overflow with refined malice: ambiguities carefully formulated, smiling denials, bureaucratic betrayals. Your tongues weave deception not only through outright denial, but also through strategic silence, omission, refusing to speak clearly where souls desperately need it. You speak against your own brothers: against the priests who preserve reverence, against the faithful Catholics who resist corruption, against those who still believe that Catholic doctrine is not a suggestion, but a divine obligation. You discredit our Most Holy Mother and her children by considering fidelity as extremism and Tradition as disobedience.
The Church has never been theirs to remodel. The Deposit of Faith does not belong to them and is not negotiable. The sacraments do not belong to them and cannot be diluted. The priesthood does not belong to them and cannot be feminized, politicized, or profaned. Christ’s Bride does not belong to their committees, their conferences, or their synods.
Leo XIV: the perfect moderate.
It was difficult, especially in the first months, to understand the direction that the first American pope in history intended to take, given that observers focused essentially on deciphering two trajectories: his relationship with the legacy of Pope Francis and the Holy See’s policy toward the Trump presidency. Today it is evident that Leo XIV is different from Pope Francis; not distant, but undoubtedly very different. Leo, to use a term very much in vogue in Italian politics, is proving to be a perfect moderate. It could not be otherwise, considering that he was elected by a wide and diverse majority of cardinals, who saw in him the ideal candidate to mediate between opposing factions. A Church perhaps more internally divided than ever, with a Francis considered almost a heretic by traditionalist Catholics and an «immediate saint» by progressives.
This caricature does not fit reality much. If we refer to certain progressive theologians, Francis ultimately turned out to be disappointing, having frustrated so many hopes (for example, regarding the female diaconate), while for Father Antonio Spadaro or the Paulines of Famiglia Cristiana, he remains the indisputable protagonist of the long-awaited spring of the Church.
The goal of Pope Leo XIII was clear from the start: to rebuild the unity of the mystical body of Christ. And how? Certainly not by denying Francis or restoring the old path, but without going further, reaffirming that Christ, and only He, must be the light that guides. This explains his rejection of the German Cardinal Marx’s initiative, who asked priests to bless irregular couples, including those formed by same-sex persons, recognizing the formal value of their
union. Leo XIII, by reiterating that it is not possible to accede to the German cardinal’s request, essentially demonstrated his desire to remain on the path traced by his predecessor (blessing for all, yes, but not recognition of homosexual unions), reaffirming clearly and unequivocally that, for the Church, the only formally recognized couples are those
formed by a man and a woman united in marriage.
There is no conservative restoration or progressive turn; rather, there is a correction of those statements by Francis that have often fueled ambiguities and interpretive contradictions. Traditionalists would have liked a thorough review of the anti-Bergoglio stance, something that did not happen and will not happen. Nor was there, however, a firm defense of Traditionis Custodes, the document with which Pope Francis rewrote the rules of the Latin Mass in a highly restrictive manner. In the first consistory, in the face of Cardinal Roche’s energetic request to reconfirm Pope Francis’s decisions, Prevost decided not to address the issue. For many, his inaction is proof of supposed continuity, but if it had been so, it would have sufficed to accede to Roche’s request and, therefore, reconfirm Traditionis Custodes. Much more credible are those who have pointed out that Pope Leo paralyzed the debate, not believing that it was the opportune moment for a solution based on unity and harmony.
And regarding Trump, the script remains the same: Prevost has clearly criticized the magnate’s imperialist policies and his typically American pretension to align the world with his own geopolitical interests, but, on the other hand, he has shown himself completely inconsistent with the positions of anti-Trump U.S. cardinals like Cupich, Tobin, and McElroy, obsessively insisting on immigration and welcome issues. In fact, as John Paul II and Benedict XVI did, he has defended, in addition to the duty to welcome, the need to guarantee citizens of the poorest countries the right not to emigrate.
In summary, a pope fully aware of having inherited a difficult legacy and who must unite the Church around the only possible bond: Christ, who is the way, the truth, and the life. Certainly, the recent visit to the Vatican of Archbishop Sarah Mullally of Canterbury, with the blessing imparted to the bishops present, has raised important questions and concerns , especially because it seems to contradict the traditional stance of the Church that excludes women from ordained ministry, and much less from the episcopate. This is a clear sign of contradiction that goes far beyond dialogue for Christian unity, since the ordination of women is one of the most insurmountable obstacles that separate Rome from the Anglican Communion. Moreover, Mullally is not unanimously accepted as «pope» by Anglicans; the more conservative ones, for example, question her extremely liberal positions, especially regarding abortion, euthanasia, and the LGBT community. For many, it was the first stumble of his pontificate, although it must be said that the Pope has not hidden the difficulties of a dialogue plagued with numerous obstacles, even in the search for common positions and goals. The pope is not a simple parish priest who can afford any kind of license, but the Vicar of Christ whose words, actions, and gestures must confirm the faithful in the truth, not disorient them or lead them to doubt the faith.
«I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life…»
Good reading.