ROME – For the outside world, it is perhaps Pope Leo XIV’s pleas for ceasefires in Gaza and Ukraine that have drawn the most attention since his election just over three weeks ago. For Catholic insiders, a range of papal actions have sparked reaction – from his sartorial choices to the use of sung Latin in public prayer, and even his few initial personnel moves.

For Italians, however, one moment from the new pontiff’s agenda has stood out above all: his 27 May audience with Cardinal Angelo Becciu, whose vicissitudes over the past five years – including his reluctant withdrawal from the recent conclave – have formed the Vatican’s most riveting domestic soap opera.

Concerned Catholic: After several months of severe illness, I have been diagnosed with coeliac disease. My consultant has told me to avoid absolutely all gluten in future. However, I have also read that the Catholic Church does not allow the use of gluten-free hosts for Holy Communion. Does this mean I can never receive the Eucharist again? I feel bereft.

Chaplain: As a Catholic priest who also suffers from coeliac disease, I very much appreciate your situation, and sympathise with it. Firstly, I would like to assure you that if you do stick to a gluten-free diet, your symptoms will soon improve dramatically. Avoiding gluten altogether can sometimes seem challenging, but nowadays most shops and restaurants cater well for those with coeliac disease, and in general society is much more understanding of those with severe food allergies.

In Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus describes a key aspect of his mission: to make known the name of the Father.

Shortly after these words spoken at the Last Supper, he used the Aramaic word for Father, “Abba”, when he was in agony in Gethsemane (Mark 14:36) – an intimate use of his first language. After his Ascension, he continued to make this name known by sending the Holy Spirit who, according to St Paul, enables us to say “Abba”, as he did (Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:6).

What we believe about the existence of good and evil – but perhaps especially evil – shapes the map of the world we hold in our heads. Conversation about good and evil becomes more difficult if – as our culture does – we replace the language of the spirit with that of therapy or the politics of power. Very few people in the West seem to believe in the existence of evil. Most believe that destructive behaviour is a justifiable response to trauma; an expression of victimhood.

Douglas Murray’s new book, On Democracies and Death Cults, starts with the conclusion that extremist Islamism is, or has become, a death cult. But his approach is contingent on a recognition of the reality of evil. Those for whom a theological world-view is accessible will find his argument persuasive.

ROME – Pope Leo XIV has made a surprise visit to Castel Gandolfo, the traditional papal summer residence that was unused by Pope Francis.

According to a Vatican statement, the Pope was welcomed by Italian cardinal Fabio Baggio, undersecretary of the Dicastery for Integral Human Development, as well as the Operations Director for the ecological project, American Father Manuel Dorantes.

Leo visited Borgo Laudato Si, which commemorates Pope Francis’s 2015 encyclical Laudato Si’ on care of the environment, and aims to promote education in integral ecology and sustainable practices.

Hundreds of women in America and the UK are planning legal action after a contraceptive jab left them at risk of developing potentially lethal brain tumours.

A study in France revealed last year that injections of medroxyprogesterone, marked under the brand name Depo-Provera, made if five times more likely for a woman to suffer from meningioma, a type of non-cancerous growth.

A lawsuit was launched last week in Florida by 400 American victims of the drug, with about 200 women in the UK also considering legal action against manufacturer Pfizer, according to the Daily Mail.

Pope Leo XIV has demonstrated his US roots as an ardent White Sox baseball fan after making a one-handed catch of a cloth doll thrown at him while on the move in the popemobile.

The impressive demonstration of hand-to-eye coordination, which has caused a stir on social media, occurred as the Pope departed on the popemobile after the weekly general audience at St Peter’s Square in the Vatican on 28 May.

“And he led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands he blessed them. While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven.” (Luke 24:50-51)

Why did Jesus choose to ascend into heaven from Bethany?

From there he had entered Jerusalem in triumph on Palm Sunday; from there he then entered heaven in glory.

Pope Leo XIV has “forcefully” appealed for an end to hostilities in both Ukraine and Gaza, asking for dialogue to ensure the cessation of violence, for the freedom of Israeli hostages and for humanitarian law to be respected.

Speaking at the close of his general audience on 28 May, the Pope said that his thoughts in recent days “often go to the Ukrainian people, struck by new, serious attacks against civilians and infrastructure”.

A quick look at the first appointments and audiences at the outset of a new papacy offers a small insight into the new system and indicates what is on the mind of the new Pope in terms of pastoral and administrative priorities.

As Pope Leo XIV approaches nearly a month at the helm of the Catholic Church, with more than two weeks of scheduling meetings and making various initial decisions – beyond the expected meetings with state leaders in town for his election and installation activities – his top priorities are already beginning to take shape.

One of the cardinals who was considered a strong contender to be elected as the new pope to replace Pope Francis has spoken about his relief that he was not chosen.

He has also described how the related pressures and responsibilities behind his relief are having an impact at other levels of the Catholic hierarchy, deterring priests from becoming bishops even after they have been selected by the Vatican as being worthy of the task.

Cardinal Mario Grech, from Malta, has said that anyone who actually wants or seeks the role of pope is either “a martyr” or “crazy”.

Too often, the Catholic Mass in the modern Roman rite feels like a meeting. A well-meaning one, perhaps – but horizontal, flat and alarmingly un-mysterious. There’s handshaking. Folksy banter from the altar. Music that sounds like a leftover from a 1970s guitar retreat. It’s meant to be “engaging”. It ends up being banal.

And people are walking away. Not just from the pews, but from the sense that what happens at Mass is sacred – something transcendent, something beautiful, something terrifying in the best possible sense. Only two thirds of regular Mass-attending Catholics believe in the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist – the “source and summit” of the life of the Church – which is to say nothing of the majorities of Catholics in most countries who don’t even attend Mass.

Pope Leo XIV has noticed.

ROME – Pope Leo XIV Sunday paid visits to the papal basilicas of St. John Lateran, where he was formally installed as Bishop of Rome, and St. Mary Major, assuring Romans of his closeness as their pastor, and stressing the need to walk together in unity.

Speaking during his May 25 Mass at St. John Lateran, the pope told Romans, “I assure you that I love you, that I desire only to enter into your service and to place my own poor abilities, the little I have and am, at the service of all.”

“I too express my affection for you and my desire to share with you, on our journey together, our joys and sorrows, our struggles and hopes,” he said.

Bishop-elect Michael Pham of San Diego, the first Vietnamese-American to head a US diocese, hopes the Catholic Church will recognise its “multicultural” nature so that people of different races and ethnicities can celebrate their faith together.

Pham, 58, is the first American bishop to be appointed by Pope Leo XIV, the first pontiff born in the United States. The Vatican announced his appointment on Thursday.

He is due to be installed on July 17.

A pope from the United States. That was the biggest surprise on 8 May when the new pontiff, Chicago-native Robert Francis Prevost, was announced as Pope Leo XIV.

But it is important not to make too much of Leo’s nationality. For one thing, Prevost hadn’t lived in the United States for decades.

He was the head of his Augustinian order in Rome from 2001 until 2013, when Pope Francis sent him to lead a diocese in Peru. Prevost had served as a missionary in Peru early in his priesthood. In 2023, after a decade in the leadership of the Peruvian diocese of Chicalayo, Prevost returned to Rome to head the Vatican’s Dicastery for Bishops.

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” (John 14:27)

In Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus offers us his own peace in our troubled hearts. But his heart was troubled too in the previous chapters: peace did not come to him effortlessly.

Earlier he had wrestled with the self-sacrifice he was called to make: “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name” (12:27-28).

He had shifted his inner monologue into a dialogue with his Father and he had remembered his purpose: this took his heart from being troubled to peace.

Several leading European bishops that represent Catholic interests in the European Union have stated that a significant concern for them that is shared by the Vatican is the exclusion by the United States of the EU from key international negotiations, such as peace talks regarding the war in Ukraine.

The comments from the bishops followed a meeting with Pope Leo XIV on Friday, 23 May. Bishop Mariano Crociata, president of the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Union (COMECE), when asked whether he believed a US-born pope would be more effective in engaging in dialogue with US President Donald Trump and his administration, told Crux: “We simply expect it.”

As with any papal transition, when Pope Leo XIV was elected questions arose about what his priorities would be, and whether he would continue to advance the priorities and reforms of his predecessor.

One of the most consistent questions up to now, as the world is getting to know Pope Leo, has been what his approach to women’s role in the Church will be, and whether he will continue Pope Francis’s trailblazing efforts to create more meaningful spaces for them in governance and authority, including within the Roman Curia.

In 1995, St John Paul II wrote, in his encyclical Evangelium Vitæ, that “without an objective moral grounding, not even democracy is capable of ensuring a stable peace”. That document, issued just over 30 years ago, is best remembered for its compelling reaffirmation of the Church’s teaching on life issues – but it also contained extensive reflection on broader political matters, especially those concerning the dignity of the individual.

Only a few years after the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe, this aspect of the document had a particular resonance for nascent democracies like John Paul II’s own beloved homeland of Poland, many of which were historically Catholic. Some had never known genuinely democratic government before, and there was much debate over how to balance freedom, tradition, prosperity, community and morality.

The Cardinal Archbishop of Singapore has defended Catholics who are attached to the traditional Latin Mass.

In an interview given to Italian media, Cardinal William Goh Seng Chye also said he believes Pope Leo XIV “will not be ambiguous” on matters of teaching and doctrine .

In the interview with La Bussola, the cardinal spoke candidly about pressing matters for the Catholic Church – ranging from persecution in Asia to sexuality and liturgy.