Pope Francis’s message for this year’s Lenten period has been released by the Vatican. Dated 6 February, the message was written the week before the Holy Father was admitted into hospital on 14 February.

Focusing on the idea of being a pilgrim Church on a constant journey of conversion, the message for Lent 2025 is entitled “Let us journey together in hope” and is divided into three parts.

The first part of the Holy Father’s reflection encourages Catholics to begin the journey while evoking the motto of this Jubilee year, “Pilgrims of Hope”. He reflects on the pilgrimage of the Israelites in Exodus, who were brought from slavery to freedom – a point that shares similarities with his 2024 Lenten reflection entitled “Through the desert God leads us to freedom”.

As Pope Francis remains hospitalised in critical condition fighting a complex respiratory infection and pneumonia in both lungs, prayers for his recovery and wishes of support are coming from different religions and interfaith groups around the world.

In addition to the more obvious sources of support in the Catholic Church, the likes of Buddhist, Jewish and Muslim faith leaders have offered prayers for the Pope’s recovery. Their voices have been joined by those from the wider and lesser-known reaches of the Church, such as the patriarchs of Catholicism’s Eastern Churches, as the whole world follows the drama around the 88-year-old Pope and his health that is unfolding in Rome.

Roberta Flack, the legendary US singer who once performed for Pope John Paul II in New York, died of cardiac arrest on 24 February at the age of 88.

Flack gained worldwide fame as a consummate interpreter of melodies who blended genres from R&B to Soul, Gospel, jazz and various other musical strains of Americana, as well as classical and Latin music.

Her encounter with the papacy of the Catholic Church came on 7 October 1995, when Flack joined Natalie Cole and John Secada in New York’s Central Park for a concert whose attendees were drawn as much by the musical star line up as they were by the attendance of Pope John Paul II, who was visiting the US.

Last week an academic in America arranged for Bishop Robert Barron and myself to go on a blind date for coffee.

We were both told I think that we would enjoy each other’s company. I was delighted to meet him. Some 1.6 million followers on social media is a very impressive achievement and I greatly enjoyed discussing among other things how he had done it.

His organisation Word on Fire is an astonishing achievement. Confronting the Protestant myth that Catholics don’t read their Bibles, the organisation has achieved extraordinary things. And there is no doubt whatsoever that renewal of faith is closely linked to a willingness to read the text of the Bible.

The Vatican has announced an evening rosary for the Pope’s recovery, starting Monday, in St. Peter’s Square.

The Holy See Press Office released a statement announcing that “starting this evening, the Cardinals residing in Rome, along with all collaborators of the Roman Curia and the Diocese of Rome, responding to the sentiments of the people of God, will gather in St. Peter’s Square at 9pm to recite the Holy Rosary for the health of the Holy Father”.

“Today’s prayer,” it noted, “will be led by His Eminence Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin.”

There has been a tremendous outpouring of prayer for Pope Francis’ recovery from around the world, and in the Holy Father’s Angelus address, which he chose to have published and distributed on Sunday, he thanked everyone for their prayers for him.

Pope Francis had a restful 10th night in the hospital, according to a statement published this morning by the Holy See Press Office.

“The night went well, the Pope slept and is resting,” read the statement.

The Pope is receiving treatment for double pneumonia at the Gemelli Hospital in Rome.

On Sunday evening, the Holy See Press Office said his condition remains critical, though he has not experienced any respiratory crises since Saturday morning.

Pope Francis had received blood transfusions to bring up his haemoglobin levels.

Fr Matthew Jarvis OP is inspired by an evangelisation conference in London with the world-famous American bishop

Bishop Robert Barron was back in London. At the Evangelisation and Culture Conference: The Bible, following his 2023 Wonder conference, he spoke eloquently of “Biblical renewal”. He described how the Bible is ‘a book of patterns by which we see the world’. Seeing Biblically will ground a spiritual renewal. 

Masterminded by Brenden Thompson, appointed the first UK Programme Director for Word on Fire in September 2023, the conference at the Excel Centre brought together more than 1,500 people from all over the UK and beyond. Alongside the speaker events, a “Jubilee Expo” showcased organisations bringing renewal in the Church. Of course, many people came simply because Bishop Barron was there. But when Brenden joked that British Catholics experience only one degree of separation, his serious point was that “communion is intrinsic to mission”. His own friendships had built this conference and he hoped our encounters would generate new bonds as we “meet Christ in his word” and transform our culture. 

It is a truth universally acknowledged that people may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel. If that wasn’t true for most of human history, it is certainly true now.

And so it was that at the ARC conference this week, packed with giants from the political, economic and scientific “right”, comedian Konstantin Kissin was the name on everyone’s lips by lunchtime on day three.

The boy done good.  He made us laugh.  But, he, like so many others, missed the fact (and it is a fact) that nothing builds civilisation up so well as adoring the crucified Christ.

“As you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.” (Luke 6:31)

This line from Sunday’s Gospel makes us think how we want to be treated by others. When we sin or make mistakes, we deeply wish to be forgiven, to be given another chance, rather than being written off, without hope for the future.

Jesus grants this wish, he always forgives us. And he also lives out all the other commands of mercy in this passage: he “blessed those who cursed him” when he gave paradise to the crucified thief who had been railing at him; he “did good to those who hated him” when he healed Malchus’ ear, sliced off by Peter’s sword in Gethsemane; he “prayed for those who persecuted him” with the staggering words, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do”; he “offered the other cheek” and “gave his tunic” to the Roman soldiers preparing his execution.

Doctors treating Pope Francis have said that the pontiff is “not out of danger” and will require at least another week of hospitalisation. They added he is not at immediate risk of death, but indicated that the situation is still precarious and that the development of sepsis is a concern.

“Is the Pope out of danger? No, he’s not out of danger,” said Doctor Sergio Alfieri, director of the medical surgical department of Rome’s Gemelli Hospital and head of the Pope’s medical team there.

He spoke with journalists on the afternoon of 21 February in the first press conference doctors have given since Pope Francis was admitted to the facility on 14 February due to persistent bronchitis.

In an interview given to Italian radio a senior Vatican cardinal has discussed the issue of whether Pope Francis should or might resign due to his health problems that have seen him hospitalised for just over a week.

His predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, in 2013 became the first pope to resign since 1294, at the time citing health problems that arguably were not as serious as Pope Francis’s. The latter has also previously alluded to his belief that if heath problems became serious enough he would consider resigning.

As the pontiff enters his eighth day in hospital today, 21 February, suffering from pneumonia in both lungs – one of which had to be partially removed when he was a young man – Vatican watchers are wondering if that level of seriousness might be getting closer, reports The Times of London.

New Atheism is out, cultural Christianity is in – it would appear. At the least, it’s undeniable that a significant number of public intellectuals are discovering an interest in the Christian faith. This interest has led some to a wholehearted conversion (for example, in the cases of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Niall Ferguson, or Tammy Peterson). For others (Jordan Peterson, Douglas Murray and Konstantin Kisin, to name a few), their beliefs remains more elusive; Christianity is more to be gestured towards than fully embraced.

Nowhere was this clearer than at the ARC (Alliance for Responsible Citizenship) conference which took place in London from 17 -19 February. An impressive gathering of over four thousand people from around the world, the conference was centred around ARC’s vision of renewal, based on the conviction that Western civilisation is in decline, but animated by the hope that we can “re-lay the foundations of our civilisation”. A mission that’s nothing if not ambitious.

Controversial comments by US President Donald Trump on the war in Ukraine have coincided with a visit by Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church to the United States.

Taking to his social media platform Truth Social, the US president called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a “dictator”, alongside making other allegations.

“He refuses to have elections. He’s low in the real Ukrainian polls. How can you be high with every city being demolished?” Trump said, while claiming the Ukrainian president only had a 4 per cent approval rating. A recent BBC poll shows Zelensky has the support of 57 per cent of Ukrainians.

Alexei Navalny – like Alexander Solzhenitsyn – was schooled in atheism. But – also like Solzhenitsyn – Navalny was influenced and baptised during childhood by religious grandparents. Navalny become a believer after the birth of his first child. In his memoir, Patriot, he says: “Like anyone who grew up in the Soviet Union, I had never believed in God, but looking now at Dasha…I could not reconcile myself to the thought that this was only biology.”

It took imprisonment and cancer, alongside incessant debates with believers incarcerated in Stalin’s gulags, to finally convert Solzhenitsyn. Ultimately both men drew strength from their Orthodox faith inside the brutal labyrinth of Russian jails.

If the news regarding Pope Francis’s health problems is of concern to Catholics all over the globe, in Argentina it is especially troubling.

There has been a “wave of love” shown to the pontiff – as a bishop described it – over the past few days in the South American nation.

Gatherings and rosary prayers for the Pope’s recovery have been promoted all over Argentina, with everything organised very quickly.

Argentina’s Bishops’ Conference released a statement on 17 February asking “all communities to gather in prayer for Pope Francis’s health, asking the Lord to grant him a fast recovery”.

The invitation, which was signed by the conference’s president, Archbishop Marcelo Daniel Colombo of Mendoza, also asked for the intercession of Our Lady of Luján, the country’s patron saint.

Pope Francis’s condition remains serious after his diagnosis of bilateral pneumonia but he is not in danger and is making progress toward recovery, according to the latest information available.

Sources close to the Pope have confirmed to Crux that during his stay in Rome’s Gemelli Hospital the pontiff has received the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick, which they said is normal under the circumstances and does not imply that he is close to death.

One source said that media reports indicating the Pope is nearing death are exaggerated, and that while he is expected to have a lengthy hospital stay, he is slowly improving.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is suing the Trump administration over its halt of refugee resettlement funding, with the bishops citing the violation of multiple laws and of Congress’s authority to control government spending as outlined by the US Constitution.

It means the US bishops now join the long list of US States, organisations and other entities that have sued the Trump administration over various federal funding freezes that have been carried out via executive order. The USCCB lawsuit focuses on the State Department’s decision on 24 January to suspend funding for refugee resettlement.

“For decades, the US government has chosen to admit refugees and outsourced its statutory responsibility to provide those refugees with resettlement assistance to non-profit organisations like USCCB,” states the lawsuit, which was filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia on 18 February.

What is the ordo amoris and why should we care about it? Just over a week ago, Pope Francis, in a letter to US Bishops, wrote the following:

“Christians know very well that it is only by affirming the infinite dignity of all that our own identity as persons and as communities reaches its maturity. Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups. In other words: the human person is not a mere individual, relatively expansive, with some philanthropic feelings!

ROME – Despite his ongoing hospitalisation for treatment of what the Vatican has said is a polymicrobial respiratory infection, Pope Francis has continued calling the Catholic parish in Gaza nightly, its parish priest has said.

Speaking to Vatican News, the Vatican’s official state-run information platform, Argentine Fr Gabriel Romanelli of Holy Family parish in Gaza, said “the Holy Father called us the first two nights he was admitted”.

Parishioners and others sheltering there awaited the pontiff’s call at 8pm local time as usual, he said, saying that despite an area blackout throughout Gaza City, “he insisted and was able to contact us by video-call”.

Pope Francis has been diagnosed with double pneumonia and is undergoing a renewed course of treatment.

In a statement, the Vatican said that the Pope’s laboratory tests, chest X-ray and general clinical conditions “continue to present a complex picture”.

After initially being admitted for treatment of bronchitis, the Vatican said Monday that he had been diagnosed with a polymicrobial respiratory infection, and that his course of treatment had shifted.

Tuesday’s statement said the infection arose “in the context of bronchiectasis and asthmatic bronchitis” and required the use of antibiotic cortisone therapy, making the Pope’s treatment plan “more complex”.