Empezamos semana, April is coming to an end, Easter advances, we have already returned from Africa and we return to the usual topics with Mrs. Mullally strolling around Rome.
Ten new priests in St. Peter’s.
Pope Leo XIV ordains ten new priests, eight of them for the Diocese of Rome in St. Peter’s. In his homily, he also draws on the passage from the Gospel of John read during the liturgy to suggest the universal and open horizon in which the «service of the priest» takes place, a «ministry of communion» offered to share with all the «life in abundance» that «comes to us in the personal encounter» with Christ. In his homily he recalls three «secrets» of the «priestly life.» «The deeper your bond with Christ,» the Pontiff recalls, in expounding the first «secret» of priestly life, «the more radical your belonging to the common humanity will be. There is no opposition or competition between heaven and earth: in Jesus they are united forever.»
The second «secret,» «we must not be frightened by it.» Today, «the need for security makes people aggressive, isolates communities and leads them to seek enemies and scapegoats.» «It must not lie in the office they hold, but in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, in the history of salvation in which they participate with their people.» The third «secret» of the «priestly life» reminds the ordinands and all priests: «You,» he says, «are a channel, not a filter.» The opposite of human strategies that seek to unite people by force, pushing them into dead ends. «There are suffocating bonds, friendships that are easy to enter and almost impossible to leave.»
The forty years of Chernobyl.
In the Regina Caeli, the Pope recalled that «today marks forty years since the tragic Chernobyl accident , which shook the conscience of humanity. This event remains a warning about the risks inherent in the use of increasingly powerful technologies. We entrust to God’s mercy the victims and all those who still suffer the consequences.» «I hope that discernment and responsibility will always prevail at all levels of decision-making, so that every use of atomic energy is at the service of life and peace.»
We must choose whether to trust in God, who «does not come to rob us of anything,» or in » thieves ,» that is, «those who, despite appearances, stifle our freedom or do not respect our dignity» and, above all, «those thieves who, plundering the earth’s resources, waging bloody wars or fueling evil in any form, do nothing more than rob us all of the possibility of a future of peace and serenity ,» said the Pope, appearing at the window of the Apostolic Palace, and added that «beliefs and prejudices» or «superficial or consumerist lifestyles, which empty us interiorly.»
Mrs. Mullally in the Vatican.
We are talking about the self-styled «Archbishop» of Canterbury, a former nurse by profession, defender of abortion (although she no longer practices as such, she remains fervently in favor of abortion) and religious leader of the schismatic Anglican community. Today we find ourselves before empty blessings next to the tomb of St. Peter the Apostle, with a Catholic bishop (a real one) present and bowing.
Also analyzing the program of the visit to Rome and the Vatican as it was published on the official website of the Archbishop of Canterbury, lady Mullally arrived in Rome and immediately something went wrong. She made the visit to St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican accompanied by at least one Cardinal and one Bishop and headed to the Clementine Chapel, the place closest to the Tomb of St. Peter. Mullally, who is a laywoman, since by dogmatic definition (encyclical letter Apostolicae Curae ( HERE the Italian translation) on Anglican ordinations), » the ordinations performed with the Anglican rite have been utterly invalid and are absolutely null,» imitates a false and sacrilegious blessing and, in this place among the most sacred in Catholicism, the bishop (the real one, Monsignor Flavio Pace) present, instead of preventing this sacrilegious and scandalous gesture (or, out of diplomatic prudence, ignoring it), bows and makes the sign of the cross as if receiving a papal blessing.
On Sunday morning, Archbishop Sarah Mullally will preside over the sung Eucharist with Holy Baptism in the Church of All Saints , the Anglican church in Rome, congregation of the Church of England in the city, before preaching at Vespers in the Church of St. Paul Outside the Walls , which is part of the Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe , late in the afternoon. Throughout the day, she will also make pilgrimage visits to pray in the Basilica of St. John Lateran and the Basilica of St. Mary Major .
Mrs. Mullally, self-proclaimed Archbishop of Canterbury, will meet and pray with His Holiness Pope Leo XIV today. and will visit the two basilicas that remain, after visiting St. Paul. Today, accompanied by Mons. Charles Phillip Richard Moth, Metropolitan Archbishop (Catholic) of Westminster, » she will join the Pope for the midday prayer in the Urbano VIII Chapel within the Apostolic Palace » , we imagine that «midday prayer» is the Regina Caeli prayer. There is a scheduled visit to the Vatican museums.
Tonight, » Archbishop Sarah Mullally will officiate choral vespers in the Church of St. Ignatius of Loyola in Campo Marzio .» We are curious to see what rite will be used for vespers in a Catholic church (and not just any Catholic church, but the former university chapel of the Roman College , where, among others, St. Louis Gonzaga and St. Robert Bellarmine are buried). The preacher will be Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, pro-prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization.
They cannot be missing, they are the icing on the cake of any self-respecting tart, the pilgrimage will conclude on Tuesday with visits to the Joel Nafuma Refugee Center at the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls and to projects managed by the Sant’Egidio Community. Undoubtedly, this visit is one of Leo XIV’s priorities, receiving Mrs. Mullally who disguises herself as a bishop rather than getting involved in domestic problems. By receiving this lady, he accepts the schismatic Anglican sect in one of its worst moments in its history. It seems that he endorses the ordinations that were declared invalid by Pope Leo XIII and, like it or not, also recognizes that a woman can access the sacred order and assume a supposed episcopate.
To understand the transition from Francis to Leo.
Gerald Murray recommends two books that help understand the transition from Pope Francis to Pope Leo XIV: one that explains the problems of the past and another that offers hope for the future. The first is «The Unfortunate Pontificate» which he describes as a very well-documented account that chronologically and objectively exposes the main actions and statements that led many—including George Pell—to qualify the previous pontificate as deeply problematic. He recommends it because it does not limit itself to arguing a point; it carefully records the events, helping readers understand the roots of the confusion and doctrinal controversy of recent years. The second is «The American Pontiff» by Paul Kengor. Murray considers it «quite good» even on first reading and uses it to highlight several strong and encouraging statements from Pope Leo XIV. The book is valuable because it presents the Pope’s own words—especially on Christ, truth and natural law—revealing a more measured, reflective and doctrinally clear leadership approach.
Leo XIV and twisted blessings.
Carl E. Olson in Catholic World Report on the response of Pope Leo XIV on blessings: «The unity or division of the Church must not revolve around sexual issues. We tend to think that when the Church speaks of morality, the only moral issue is sexuality. And, in reality, I believe there are much broader and more important issues, such as justice, equality, the freedom of men and women and religious freedom, which would take priority over that particular issue.»
«The Holy See has made it clear that we do not agree with the formal blessing of couples, in this case same-sex couples, or couples in irregular situations, beyond what was specifically permitted by Pope Francis in affirming that all people receive the blessing.» The document by Cardinal Marx, titled «The blessing strengthens love» and published on April 4, clearly goes beyond that limit, by contemplating blessings for «couples not married by the Church, divorced and remarried couples, as well as couples of all sexual orientations and gender identities.»
Leo XIV finally recalled the universal principle of Franciscan pastoral care: «The well-known expression of Francis ‘All, all, all’ is a manifestation of the Church’s conviction that all are welcome; all are invited to follow Jesus and all are invited to seek conversion in their lives.» He added that going beyond this today «may cause more disunity than unity.»
The Fiducia Supplicans had a dual purpose: to curb episcopal conferences that had already overstepped—such as those in Belgium and Germany—and to encourage the more reluctant bishops to express themselves more freely. The result was a «polarizing fiasco»: the document failed on both fronts, and the German Church hierarchy persisted in its endeavor, convinced, with some reason, that there would be no concrete consequences. More than two years later, it is evident that the majority of the German Church’s bishops are committed to an autonomous path, called the «Synodal Way,» and are heading toward «homosexuality and disunity.»
Cardinal Marx’s document is skillfully constructed around the word love: who could be against love? The introduction is based on a text from the 2023 Synodal Way that speaks of «couples united by love,» of «full respect and dignity,» of «long-term social responsibility.» These apparently noble words describe not Christian love, but a «secular and bourgeois love.»
The theologian Tracey Rowland, quoted in the article, had already warned about this phenomenon in a December 2021 interview: «The place where bourgeois Christianity flourishes is in ecclesiastical institutions.» It is the «attitude of those who identify as Christians, but define Christianity by a series of markers that do not differ at all from prevailing social trends.» A comfortable and self-complacent Christianity, devoid of the self-abandonment that constitutes the essence of evangelical love. The German text essentially accepts the premises of contemporary cultural relativism, stating that «in our culture and society… human dignity, equality and self-determination are highly valued.»
Here lies the crucial point: if we accept an erroneous definition of love, the entire edifice of Christian morality collapses, and with it authentic justice and equality. For this reason, St. John Paul II, in the encyclical Evangelium Vitae , wrote: «Only true love is capable of protecting life,» and Benedict XVI’s first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est , started precisely from the need to clarify what Christian love is: «God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him» (1 John 4:16). These words from the First Letter of John express with extraordinary clarity the heart of the Christian faith: the Christian image of God and the resulting image of humanity and its destiny.
Since the Catholic faith, in its essence, is governed by Trinitarian love, what the Church says and teaches about love—in this case, eros, but also agape—reaches the core of what it means to be human. Saying that «justice» and «equality» are more important than these issues sounds good, but it is not a complete solution, because an erroneous conception of love undermines authentic justice and equality. St. John Paul II wrote: «The meaning of life lies in giving and receiving love, and under this light human sexuality and procreation reach their true and full meaning.» This is an essential and fundamental truth. It is not simply about «following rules» or «being moral»; it is about living the divine truth, which is inherent to our own body and being.
The unity of the Church is not built by ignoring the truth about love, but by starting from it. This is a truly important point. Chastity, as the Catechism reminds us in number 2337, refers to «the interior unity of man in his bodily and spiritual being»: it is the condition, not the limit, of true freedom and true communion. The commandments, as the apostle John wrote, «are not burdensome,» not because they are easy, but because they are born of love and lead to love.
The ‘beggar of love’.
We live in a world of madmen and the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith has saved the «beggar of love,» Father Valentino Salvoldi, priest of the Diocese of Bergamo, despite dozens of testimonies of sexual abuse against him. Federica Tourn does not offer another of her intense articles on the theme of abuses in the church they have it in Preferisco i giorni feriali (I Prefer Weekdays , with updates, investigations, analysis and podcasts on abuse cases and how Pope Leo XIII is influencing the Vatican’s stance on the matter.
The case of Don Valentino Salvoldi, priest of the Diocese of Bergamo, responsible for having sexually abused at least 21 children, including several minors, ended with the dismissal of criminal and ecclesiastical charges. On September 3, 2024, prosecutor Elena Torresin, deputy prosecutor of the Udine court, had already decided not to prosecute the priest, who was then eighty years old, because the crimes had prescribed. This decision was subsequently confirmed in 2025 by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, which decided «not to suspend the prescription of the crimes.»
Pope Francis has reiterated on several occasions that the Church does not consider child abuse an end in itself and that, in these cases, the statute of limitations is always waived, but the judges of the Dicastery, headed by prefect Tucho Fernández, seem to have little memory. Pope Francis’s call for «zero tolerance» in the face of abuse has remained a mere statement of intent, there is no real intention to put it into practice.
Pope Leo also returned to the theme of abuses and the lack of listening to victims at the beginning of January, in his closing speech of the first extraordinary consistory of his pontificate, held before 170 cardinals: «Abuse in itself causes a deep wound that may last a lifetime; but often the scandal in the Church arises because the door has been closed and the victims have not been welcomed with the closeness of authentic shepherds.»
The full awareness of the Vatican about the problem has not been accompanied by an adequate response: ecclesiastical authorities at all levels continue to keep sealed the archives containing documents on sexual assault cases and are eager to close thorny cases of clerical pedophilia so they can continue undisturbed. Priests and bishops are so indifferent to the suffering of victims that they do not even bother to keep up appearances, and it even happens that investigations into pedophile priests are carried out by the same people who handle diocesan services for the protection of minors. If we learn about the case of an abusive priest, it certainly was not thanks to any transparency on the part of the Church, which is directly responsible, but solely thanks to the courage of the victims, who reported it to the justice system and the press.
The Church of Leo XIV, in perfect harmony with that of Francis, pronounces many beautiful words about pedophilia and then does the opposite. Pope Francis had reiterated on several occasions that, for the Church, child abuse does not prescribe and, therefore, the statute of limitations is always ignored in these cases. This feeling of being above the rules is typical of the Italian Church: the CEI, by express declaration of its president, Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, in reality did not want an independent commission on clerical abuses, as has happened in many other countries, but opted for the convenient route of an internal investigation, which to date has produced «reports» and «surveys» with scant and totally unreliable figures, the result of questionnaires to which many dioceses have not even responded. «When a complaint of a crime is received, the listening centers established by the CEI guidelines do not carry out a formal investigation, but act as an informal access point; they listen, sometimes record the information and refer it to the bishop.»
According to the results of the Rete l’Abuso study when a victim goes to a diocesan listening center, they find themselves facing three structures that do not communicate with each other: The first is an office that collects data from victims and refers it to the bishop, who will decide whether to proceed with a preliminary investigation and send the complete file to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. This office, as mentioned, collects the victim’s data and transmits it to the second office, but does not have access to the complete files. Therefore, it knows the individual data provided by each victim, but is unaware if the main file contains information about other victims of that priest. From here, as before the opening of the listening centers, it is at the bishop’s discretion to initiate or not a preliminary investigation and refer all the information to the third body: the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith . Obviously, neither the victim nor the listening center that received the information will have access to those files nor be able to verify their progress. We will have to trust the bishop’s decision.
The responses to victims are a real firework: «The file is confidential and, at this time, the diocese is not authorized to provide any information to the persons who reported their offense and offered their opinion, nor to the person being investigated.» «The documents have been delivered to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith because this Dicastery is competent in the matter according to canon law and, at this point, the Bishop will have to wait for communications or instructions from the same regarding it.» «Once the documents of the preliminary investigation have been received and carefully studied, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith has several options: to archive the case; to request a more thorough preliminary investigation; to impose non-penal disciplinary measures, usually by means of a penal precept; to impose penal remedies or penances, or warnings or admonitions; to initiate a penal process; or to identify other pastoral avenues of interest. At that moment, the decision will be communicated to the bishop, with the pertinent instructions for its application.»
As for deadlines, there is no strict time limit; generally, a decision can be expected within six months, but, as you will understand, each case has its own unique characteristics and, therefore, the Dicastery might examine the documents and make a decision in a shorter or longer time than the one indicated above. There are no specific provisions regulating the communication of the investigation result to the persons. According to canon law, the victim has no right to receive information about the outcome of the case. While victims of abuse are encouraged to contact diocesan child protection services, in reality, those who report do not even have the right to be informed of the outcome of the investigation. Salvoldi’s file, like so many others, has reached the Vatican, and there, practically, all trace of it has disappeared. Victims are asked to wait indefinitely, without even the guarantee of receiving a response.
Leo XIV on January 8, 2026, closing the extraordinary consistory: «Often, the scandal in the Church arises because the door has been closed and the victims have not been welcomed, accompanied by the closeness of authentic shepherds.» And we continue without Pope Leo receiving the abused from Chiclayo, the door remains closed and they intend to close their case.
Letter to the Pope from a faithful of the fraternity.
Kennedy Hall in Crisis Magazine : «I would also like to say something that some of my traditionalist Catholic brothers might consider a bit sentimental, but I say it sincerely: I love you. I love you deeply. My wife and children love you. We pray for you every day, several times a day. You are our Holy Father, and it is natural to love your father, whether biological or spiritual.» «I also want to acknowledge that you have inherited an impossible task, at least in human terms. In this Year of Our Lord 2026, the world and the Church are in a state of disorder.» «You have inherited a Church that in recent decades has faced massive corruption, both doctrinal and moral. You have been catapulted into an office that has been politicized in ways that, in my opinion, are deeply unfair to the dignity of the papacy and undermine the true role of the Pope as the preeminent world leader.» «Among the controversies you have inherited is the one surrounding the Society of St. Pius X. I do not know to what extent you were aware of this matter before your election as pope, nor if you had any personal experience with the priests, bishops or faithful of the Society. I myself have attended a Society chapel for years. I have also written in defense of the Society and I reaffirm what I said. I know that the SSPX is not perfect. No human institution is. But I know that without it, I would not know what to do to raise my family. What I take most seriously—and I believe the SSPX priests do too—is the salvation of souls. It may seem outdated to some, but I still believe that the Catholic faith is the one true religion. I believe there is no salvation outside the Church. I believe we must worship God in the most worthy way possible.»
The poor of the Sangallo ramp.
During the years of Pope Francis’s pontificate, the surroundings of the Vatican have visibly degraded. It is supposed that what we should seek when we talk about people living on the street is that they stop living there. In these years they have been offered all kinds of services,, showers, hairdressing, ice cream excursions, audiences with the Pope… but they remained on the street. They were the Pope’s poor, they could not enter the Vatican even as a joke, but in its surroundings they felt safe. Today the news is that this situation of sought-after human degradation seems to be beginning to change and the San Pietro police station intervened on the Rampa del Sangallo, very close to Vatican City. The agents removed household items and camps, and identified several people. The ramp has long been a place of improvised camps and other degraded areas. Workers from AMA, the company that cleans the city, removed bedding, tents and other household items used for overnight stays, which also obstructed access and compromised the sanitary conditions of the area.
The Vatican’s relations with the USSR.
Important details are coming to light. At the height of the Cold War, in 1963, the Soviet Union was on the verge of establishing diplomatic relations with the Vatican. This is documented precisely and immediately in the second volume of the «Diaries: 1961-1965» by Ettore Bernabei. It is a firsthand testimony that sheds light from within on an attempt at dialogue that until now had only been partially understood. If that attempt, contemporary to the Bay of Pigs crisis, had succeeded, it would probably have changed the course of history. In fact, the events of the following decade (starting with the role of John Paul II) demonstrated to the Russians the strategic importance of the Catholic Church and the Vatican, not only with respect to the United States, but directly with respect to the Eastern bloc.
A diary entry from January 14, 1963, where Bernabei notes that the Soviet government is willing to initiate negotiations with the Holy See to establish diplomatic relations. This is not an isolated fact, but the result of a process that had already begun in the previous months. On November 19, 1962, the Soviet ambassador in Rome himself asked how it would be possible to enter into negotiations with the Vatican, evidencing Moscow’s clear political will. The volume, published in full and without omissions, offers documentation of great historical relevance. Its pages allow us to reconstruct a concrete attempt at dialogue between opposing blocs, in a period marked by crucial events such as the Second Vatican Council.
Diplomatic relations between Russia and the Vatican remained frozen for more than forty years. In the pontificate of Benedict XVI, on December 9, 2009, an exchange of notes took place in the Vatican between the Russian Foreign Ministry and the Secretariat of State, legally formalizing mutual relations at the level of the Russian embassy to the Vatican and the apostolic nunciature in Moscow. It was the result of secret negotiations—whose circumstances are not widely known—also carried out by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
Pope Benedict XVI met with Putin in 2007. According to him, they spoke in German (a language Putin mastered, having spent many years in Germany as a KGB agent). Pope Ratzinger added that he had found a man moved by the depth of his faith. Ratzinger felt closer to Putin’s Orthodox Russia than to Obama’s America. Pope Francis met with Putin on two occasions, in 2013 and 2015. In September 2013, Francis sent him a message on the occasion of the G20 summit in St. Petersburg, praising Russia’s firm opposition to the «strong» military solution that U.S. President Obama was pushing in Syria. Obama met with Francis in March 2014, a year after his pontificate, coming in second after Putin.
In Milan they pray for vocations.
The Archbishop of Milan, Delpini, will make a pilgrimage to the shrines of the diocese to pray for vocations. An invitation addressed especially to the younger generations, to discern one’s own life as a vocation, to learn to understand one’s deepest desires and to be open to a choice capable of becoming responsibility. Special attention will be paid to vocations to special consecration: the priestly ministry, the diaconate and religious life. Praying for vocations means invoking the Spirit so that no life remains dimmed, enclosed in itself, unable to recognize the gifts received. «The fire of the Spirit ignites life and allows us to illuminate, spread joy and have a mission worth dedicating our talents to, so that we may be consumed by love.» Delpini asks communities to pray for vocations, but also to help children, adolescents and young people to question their own lives .
Music returns to the Vatican.
Three days dedicated to sacred music, education and international exchange: from February 5 to 7, 2027, the Vatican will host the 5th International Choirs Meeting , an event that will bring together singers and choir directors from around the world. The meeting will continue on Saturday morning, with the most anticipated moment being the special audience with Pope Leo XIV. On Saturday afternoon there will be space for music with the grand concert in the Paul VI Hall : all the singers will form a single choir divided into four voices , directed by the Diocese of Rome Choir , under the direction of Monsignor Marco Frisina and accompanied by the Nova Opera Orchestra. It will conclude on Sunday with a Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica
««I am the good shepherd, I know mine and mine know me.»
Good reading.