Pope Leo XIV has sent a message to the 36th International Youth Festival in Medjugorje.

In a letter read by one of the presiding bishops, Pope Leo said, “I cordially greet you all, with the greeting of the Risen Lord,” and asked pilgrims to "walk together, support each other, and inspire one another."

Encouraging fraternal care, Pope Leo said that “we are created to encounter one another” and “to discover a common goal.” Quoting St Augustine in Enarrationes in Psalmos, he said: “Let us go, let us go! Thus they speak to one another, and, creating a flame for one another, they form a single flame. And this single flame, born from the one who speaks, transmits to the other the flame with which it burns.”

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has issued a nationwide invitation to Catholics to join a focused campaign of daily prayer, invoking the intercession of Saint Joseph, Defender of Life, to stop taxpayers’ funds going to the abortion industry.

Bishop Daniel E. Thomas (chair of the USCCB Committee on Pro-Life Activities) and Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio (USCCB president) jointly encouraged the faithful to pray starting July 25 through October 1—the start of Respect Life Month—with the aim of ending federal Medicaid support for organizations that perform abortions.

I first encountered the words Rerum novarum as a postgraduate theology student. I was completing a course on Catholic Social Teaching at the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Toronto’s seminary. An entire week was dedicated to Rerum novarum, the papal encyclical promulgated by Pope Leo XIII in 1891, now regarded as the foundational document underpinning Catholic Social Teaching.

I wasn’t yet Catholic, though my conversion was well underway, and my evangelical Baptist sola scriptura (“Bible alone”) roots made me wary of any “extra-biblical” guide.

But on reading Rerum novarum, a lightbulb went off.

It had been almost a year since I transitioned to a career in tech – and I was nervous. The software company I was working for was putting out a new product, and they’d put me in charge of the launch narrative.

The assignment was simple enough: come up with three concepts for what the “story” behind the campaign could be. Then, after presenting the concepts, make a recommendation of which one to go with and why. The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) would make the final call from there.

The Vatican has reiterated that a two-state solution is the “only viable and equitable path toward a just and lasting peace” in the Holy Land.

Speaking at a conference on the Israel-Palestine question, taking place at the United Nations on 30 July, the Permanent Observer of the Holy See, Archbishop Gabriele Caccia, said the Vatican reiterates its “unequivocal condemnation of the heinous terrorist attack” against Israel by Hamas on 7 October in 2023.

Pope Leo XIV will proclaim his first Doctor of the Church by elevating St. John Henry Newman to one of the most highly esteemed positions in the history of sainthood and of the Catholic Church.

On 31 July, Pope Leo received in audience Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, reports EWTN Vatican.

A human embryo that was frozen more than three decades ago has just been born as a baby boy in the United States.

Born in Ohio, the baby has “set the record” and become the world’s “oldest baby” after "being born from an embryo" that was placed in storage before his parents had started primary school, reports The Times.

It describes how Thaddeus Daniel Pierce was born on 26 July to Lindsey and Tim Pierce, who “adopted his embryo” last year. The embryo was frozen in 1994 and one consequence is that the baby has a 30-year-old sister.

Catholic schools were not founded to be neutral. They were not founded to serve public opinion or bend to the dominant cultural winds. They were founded to serve the mission of the Church – to assist parents in the cultivation of virtue, the proclamation of Truth and the formation in the Faith of their children.

Today, however, that mission faces growing challenges, from outside and from within.

Pope Leo XIV today expressed his “deep sorrow” over the recent deadly attack on a church in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

More than 40 people were killed when Islamic State-backed rebels belonging to the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) attacked a Catholic church in Komanda, in Ituri province, on the night of 26 July. Children at a summer camp were among the victims in the attack.

In addition to expressing his sadness over the attack, Pope Leo prayed for the victims during his Wednesday audience in St. Peter’s Square on 30 July.

The prestigious 2025 Josef Pieper Prize has been awarded to the Word on Fire Ministries founder and social media personality Bishop Robert Barron in recognition of his work promoting and explaining Christian ideas and culture.

Instituted in 2004, the award from the Josef Pieper Foundation in Münster, Germany, is conferred every five years in recognition of outstanding works upholding Christian-based anthropology. It was presented to Bishop Barron of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, on 27 July at the award ceremony in Münster, reports OSV News.

Pope Leo XIV surprised a huge crowd of more than 100,000 young Catholics when he unexpectedly showed up at a 2025 Jubilee welcoming ceremony.

The Pope emerged in St. Peter’s Square riding his popemobile at the end of an evening Mass that kicked off the Jubilee of Youth, a weeklong celebration for young Catholics, and which marks the first big youth event of his pontificate, reports the Associated Press (AP).

A fake story claiming that Pope Leo XIV has announced 15 major reforms has garnered considerable traction across the internet. The false claim is that Pope Leo has released a document called Cor Unum (“One Heart”), which allegedly contains sweeping changes to Catholic worship and governance.

Trigger Warning – May Offend Female Police Officers. If you don’t like what you read, don’t criticise me—I suffer from ITCD (Incapable of Taking Criticism Disorder). If you do criticise me despite knowing about my disorder, then you have no respect.

I was chatting recently with a surgeon friend who was bemoaning the lowering of standards in the NHS. The medical students coming in are, in his words, “cognitively insubstantial.” Many are given extra time in exams because they would struggle to meet the required standard otherwise. It likely doesn’t matter all that much—robots will replace them in a few short years—but in the meantime, we might expect some extra time added to our hip replacement surgery. What’s another few hours when you’ve already waited five years?

Pope Leo XIV has said that he is following the humanitarian crisis in Gaza with “great concern” while also renewing his “heartfelt appeal for a ceasefire”.

Speaking on Sunday in St. Peter’s Square after giving his Angelus address, the Pope described how the civilian population in Gaza is being “crushed by hunger and continues to be exposed to violence and death”.

His comments come shortly after the Israeli military began a system of pausing military operations for limited periods – 10 hours a day – in three populated areas of the Gaza Strip in order to facilitate humanitarian assistance. On Friday, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that the starvation crisis is deepening across Gaza.

A baby in the US who was born at exactly 21 weeks – 133 days ahead of his mother’s due date – has been recognised as the world’s most premature baby by Guinness World Records.

The announcement of the world record came shortly after the baby, Nash Keen, turned one year's old, having survived against what Guinness World Records described as “phenomenal odds”, reports the Guardian.

The empty bell tower of Nagasaki’s cathedral has finally got a replacement bell for the one that was destroyed 80 years ago by the atomic blast that levelled most of the city at the end of World War II.

It follows an international effort to fund the construction and installation of the bell at Urakami Cathedral, with $125,000 raised in just over a year from more than 600 individual donors, reports the Catholic News Agency (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV has said all Christians are called to enter “the dynamism of mission and to face the challenges of evangelisation.”

On Friday, the Pope addressed two separate groups: seminary formators and participants in the Xaverian Missionaries’ General Chapter, which he acknowledged were “certainly two different events.”

The Holy Father said the call to be missionaries “requires of us all, ordained ministers and lay faithful alike, a solid and integral formation, which is not limited to specialised knowledge, but must aim to transform our humanity and our spirituality so that they reflect the Gospel, and so that we have ‘the same mind’ as Christ Jesus.”

The fourth annual Religious Liberty in the States report from the First Liberty Institute has ranked Florida as the most successful state during the past year at protecting religious liberty in the United States.

West Virginia, in stark contrast, is ranked the least successful state at protecting religious liberty though its state statutes or constitution.

First Liberty, which is the larges legal organisation in the US dedicated solely to defending religious liberty, released on 21 July its annual index ranking religious liberty protections for each of the country's 50 states, reports the Catholic News Agency (CNA).

The aftermath of a scandal often reveals as much about a culture as does the scandal itself. So it was last week, when allegations surfaced against Catholic YouTuber Alex Jurado, known as "Voice of Reason", including claims of inappropriate messages to women and the grooming of a minor.

Reactions online were immediate. Some were furious. Others seemed oddly triumphant. A few declared that it demonstrated why laypeople should stay out of apologetics altogether – apparently forgetting that the Church has spent the past two decades reckoning with abuse committed by clergy.

Pope Leo XIV returned to Rome on Tuesday night at the conclusion of his summer break in the nearby town of Castel Gandolfo.

The pontiff spoke with journalists as he left Villa Barberini, the papal summer residence where he has spent 16 days in July, calling for an end to the arms trade “that goes behind every war” and briefly discussing the situation in Gaza and whether he would visit the conflict zone.