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I am following with deep concern what is happening in the Middle East and in Iran during this tumultuous time. Stability and peace are not achieved through mutual threats, nor through the use of weapons, which sow destruction, suffering, and death, but only through reasonable, sincere, and responsible dialogue.

Border czar Tom Homan dismissed Pope Leo’s criticism of President Donald Trump’s deportation policies on Wednesday by comparing the fortified walls around the Vatican to the United States’s own border security efforts. During a brief encounter with reporters, Homan was asked about Leo’s comments condemning mass deportations, including that the U.S. is doing them in a “disrespectful” way. Homan said Vatican City itself is a walled state and that the pontiff should focus on the Catholic Church’s “own issues.”

[Catholic Caucus] Worldwide Spiritual Bouquet for the Pope and the TLMWith the coming months set to prove pivotal for the Traditional Latin Mass and the cause of Catholic Tradition within the Church, Missae pro Missa hereby announces a new worldwide spiritual bouquet beginning Feb. 22, Feast of the Chair of St. Peter and First Sunday of Lent, to conclude on June 29, Solemnity of Saints Peter & Paul, which follows the next Consistory of Cardinals called by Pope Leo XIV. The intention of this latest campaign is straightforward: for the Pope to recognize the full freedom of the TLM.As with...

[Catholic Caucus] Five Wounds and One Hope: Msgr. Schneider Reveals Details of His Audience with Leo XIVBishop Athanasius Schneider, auxiliary bishop of Astana (Kazakhstan), has made public new details of the private audience he held with Leo XIV on December 18th last, in an interview with Robert Moynihan broadcast by Urbi et Orbi Communications. On this occasion, he delved into the diagnosis he presented to the Pope about the current situation of the Church, resuming some points he had already pointed out in January, when he alluded to the need for an Apostolic Constitution to guarantee liturgical peace.As he explained,...

Leo XIV: Schismatic "Churches" Form a Wonderful MosaicOn February 5, Leo XIV received priests and monks representing the Armenian, Coptic, Ethiopian, Eritrean, Malankara, and Syriac schismatic groups, which he referred to as "churches."Catholics believe that Jesus Christ founded one church.Pope Leo XIV said: "Dear friends, the historic and cultural differences among our churches represent a wonderful mosaic of our shared Christian heritage, which we can all appreciate."He wants "to support each other so that we may grow in our shared faith in Christ." "When we remove the prejudices within ourselves and open our hearts, we grow in charity, work more...

The Vatican has a long memory when it comes to blocking American-led peace initiatives — and a short one when it comes to recognizing Jewish rights in the Land of Israel. When Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s Secretary of State, announced Tuesday that Pope Leo would not be joining U.S. President Donald Trump’s newly formed Board of Peace, he framed the decision in procedural language about the United Nations. But for anyone who has watched the Holy See’s decades-long pattern of hostility toward Israeli sovereignty, the refusal carries a familiar echo. Parolin made the announcement on the sidelines of a...

[Catholic Caucus] Leo XIV To Schneider: "Young People Told Me They Converted Thanks to the Traditional Latin MassBishop Athanasius Schneider told Robert Moynihan on February 16 about the 30 minutes private audience with Pope Leo XIV on December 18.He described the tone as open and cordial: “The Pope was very kind, attentively listening to me, very, very fraternal and simple.”Two drafts for Leo XIVBishop Schneider handed Pope Leo XIV two drafts during the audience.1) A solemn Profession of FaithHe proposed a solemn Profession of Faith, modeled on Paul VI’s 1968 Credo of the People of God. Schneider emphasized that such...

[Catholic Caucus] Lepanto Institute calls for Pope Leo to laicize New Mexico priest over homosexual ‘domestic partnership’Lepanto pointed out that parents of grade school age children are concerned for the welfare and safety of their children, with an openly pro-homosexual priest serving as pastor of a Catholic schoolThe Lepanto Institute has formally requested that Pope Leo laicize and suspend from ministry a New Mexico priest who entered into a homosexual “domestic partnership” for 10 years during a 28-year leave of absence from the priesthood.Lepanto sent a copy of its August 2025 report on Fr. Steve Rosera, of the Archdiocese of...

[Catholic Caucus] What to watch at Pope Leo’s first extraordinary consistoryThe major event in the ecclesial calendar this week is the Extraordinary Consistory, a formal meeting of cardinals which Pope Leo has summoned for 7 and 8 January. This will be his first, and such meetings take place very much as the Pope wishes. Although Pope Francis held a consistory in almost every year of his pontificate, after 2015 he reduced the discussion element, while continuing to use them primarily to create new cardinals. For ten years the world’s cardinals have been rather muzzled. They now have an opportunity to...

[Catholic Caucus] EXCLUSIVE: Letter to Cardinals Offers Solution for TLM Ahead of Pope Leo XIV’s First ConsistoryCould an ecclesiastical jurisdiction for the traditional Roman liturgy resolve the impasse created by “Traditionis Custodes”?ROME, 5 January 2026 — In view of the liturgy being on the agenda at the extraordinary consistory of cardinals convened by Pope Leo XIV this week, one of France’s most senior traditionalist clergy has sent members of the Sacred College a letter proposing a new path for the ancient Roman Rite in the Catholic Church.Published here exclusively in French and English translation, the letter aims to open a...

Pope Leo stated Dec. 23 that he had joined Chicago Archbishop Cardinal Cupich in pleading with Illinois Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker not to sign a controversial assisted suicide bill into law and was “very disappointed” when Pritzker ignored their intervention and signed the bill. “I spoke very explicitly with Governor Pritzker about that,” the Holy Father said outside Castel Gandolfo in response to EWTN Vatican correspondent Rudolf Gehrig’s question about the bill. Pritzker visited the Vatican and had an audience with the Pope in November. “At that time, the bill was already on his desk,” the Holy Father said Tuesday....

Pope Leo XIV is expected to name Bishop Ronald Hicks of Joliet, Illinois, to succeed retiring 75 year old Timothy Cardinal Dolan as archbishop of New York, sources briefed on the transition say. About Bishop Hicks Pope Leo is from Illinois, and he has tapped a fellow Illinois native to lead the archdiocese of New York. Hicks, 58, and Pope Leo have much in common. They were both born and raised in suburban Chicago, with Hicks being born in Harvey and raised in South Holland. Both men also speak fluent Spanish after spending years ministering to the poor in South...

Safe to say, traditional Catholics repelled by the liberal views of the late Pope Francis are not finding much relief under its new pontiff. In October, Pope Leo took yet another sharp-tongued and sarcastic aim at President Donald Trump for ejecting illegal immigrants from America, likening it to abortion and implying he is a hypocrite. "Someone who says I am against abortion but in agreement with the inhuman treatment of immigrants in the United States, I don't know if that's pro life," the Bishop of Rome pondered out loud to media from his luxe Castel Gandolfo digs in Italy. Castel...

[Catholic Caucus] Pope Leo XIV Extends Apostolic Blessing to SSPX Chapel in North Carolina for Its 25th AnniversaryThe document reads:The Holy Father Leo XIV cordially imparts the requested Apostolic Blessing to Reverend Father John Bourbeau, FSSPX and Faithful of the Fraternitas Sacerdotalis Sancti Pii X of Saint Anthony of Padua Chapel on the occasion of the 25th Anniversary of the Foundation of the Chapel invoking through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary an abundance of divine graces. Mount Holly, North Carolina, 22nd August 2025, Jubilaeum A.D. MMXXV. (Dated at the Vatican, November 18, 2025, and signed by Card. Konrad...

Pope Leo just wrapped his tour of oppressed Christian communities in Islamist dominated nations like Turkey and Lebanon. Rather than directly address the persecution of Christians, he praised the local regimes, met with Muslim leaders, took off his shoes at a mosque and took refuge in vague generalities. In Lebanon, Pope Leo offered no direct criticism of Hezbollah or Islam. He visited and prayed at the Port of Beirut, where a Hezbollah weapons explosion killed over 200 people, many of them Christians, and the blast damaged churches and devastated families. Pope Leo avoided placing blame, claiming instead that it’s natural...

Pope Leo urges Christians to ‘be less fearful’ of Islam, encourages ‘dialogue’ with Muslims'One of the values of this trip is precisely to raise the world’s attention to the possibility that dialogue and friendship between Muslims and Christians is possible,' Leo stated.Pope Leo XIV has spoken warmly about the relationship between Muslims and Christians and downplaying fears of Islamization.During his recent international trip to Turkey and Lebanon, the Pope gave a speech at an interfaith meeting held at Martyrs’ Square in Beirut.“Dear friends, your presence here today, in this extraordinary place where minarets and bell towers stand side by side,...

[Catholic / Orthodox Caucus] Pope Leo XIV issues joint blessing with Orthodox Patriarch BartholomewPope Leo concluded his two-day trip to Turkey with a shared blessing alongside Patriarch Bartholomew I before flying out to Beirut, Lebanon.As part of the last public act of his apostolic journey to Turkey, Pope Leo XIV imparted an ecumenical blessing together with the Eastern Patriarch Bartholomew I.On November 30, Pope Leo XIV and Patriarch Bartholomew I appeared on the square of the Church of Saint George in Constantinople to bless the crowd in turn, in Latin and in Greek, respectively. Afterward, they took each other by...

Pope Leo XIV called a two-state arrangement the “only solution” to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, doubling down on the Holy See’s longstanding position in his first airborne news conference en route to Lebanon on Sunday. “We all know that at this time Israel still does not accept that solution, but we see it as the only solution,” he said, as he flew from Istanbul to Beirut for the second and final leg of his maiden voyage as pope. “We are also friends with Israel, and we are seeking to be a mediating voice between the two parties that might help...

[Catholic Caucus] LEO IS FOLLOWING FRANCIS’ ABUSE COVER-UP PLAYBOOKDiarmuid Martin, after completing his studies for the priesthood in Ireland in 1969, worked in a Dublin parish before being sent to Rome for further studies in moral theology. Even though we were both pursuing licentiate degrees at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum), we didn’t meet in class. Rather, we met through a common friend, Swiss Guard Wachtmeister Hans Roggen. After attending my diaconate ordination at the North American College in 1973, Diarmuid returned to Ireland only to come back to Rome in 1976 to spend most of his...

Pope Leo made one of his clearest public interventions yet on immigration policy, telling journalists outside the papal summer residence of Castel Gandolfo that defending the dignity of migrants should never be confused with advocating for open borders. His remarks, delivered spontaneously in response to questions from journalists the evening of Nov. 18, came after questions about the ongoing immigration debate in the U.S. and the recent pastoral message released by the U.S. bishops. The Pope praised the bishops’ moral leadership while simultaneously drawing a clear line: affirming the rule of law and the legitimate authority of governments is not...