Pope, Israeli president speak by phone about Sydney attack, peace in Gaza December 17, 2025By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service Filed Under: Conflict in the Middle East, Ecumenism and Interfaith Relations, Gun Violence, News, Vatican, World News Pope Leo XIV and Israeli President Isaac Herzog spoke by telephone Dec. 17, just days after a terrorist attack on a Hanukkah celebration in Australia led to the deaths of 15 people.
USCCB president expresses church’s solidarity with Jewish community December 16, 2025By OSV News OSV News Filed Under: Ecumenism and Interfaith Relations, Feature, Gun Violence, News, World News Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, expressed the Catholic Church’s solidarity with the Jewish community in the wake of a Dec. 14 terror attack by two gunmen that targeted Jewish beachgoers at an event celebrating the first day of Hanukkah at Sydney’s Bondi Beach.
‘Enough’ of antisemitic violence, say pope, archbishop after Australia attack December 15, 2025By Junno Arocho Esteves OSV News Filed Under: Ecumenism and Interfaith Relations, Gun Violence, News, World News Two gunmen targeted Jewish beachgoers at an event celebrating the first day of Hanukkah in an apparent terror attack at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, New South Wales police said.
Pope condemns ‘antisemitic violence,’ ‘terrorist massacre’ in Sydney December 15, 2025By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service Filed Under: Ecumenism and Interfaith Relations, Feature, Gun Violence, News, Vatican, World News Condemning the attack on Jews celebrating Hanukkah in Sydney, Pope Leo XIV said, “Enough with these forms of antisemitic violence! We must eradicate hatred from our hearts.”
A look at highlights of Vatican II on 60th anniversary of its wrap December 7, 2025By Alexander Brüggemann OSV News Filed Under: Ecumenism and Interfaith Relations, Feature, News, Vatican, World News The Second Vatican Council, which after three years of dialogue and document drafting closed on Dec. 8, 1965, changed the face of the church, and opened it to the modern world.
Unity, dialogue, respect: On first trip, pope highlights paths to peace December 3, 2025By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service Filed Under: Conflict in the Middle East, Ecumenism and Interfaith Relations, Feature, News, Vatican, World News Spending time with Catholics, other Christian leaders and top Muslim clerics in Turkey Nov. 27-Nov. 30 and Lebanon Nov. 30-Dec. 2, the pope made formal speeches about how believing in God as the father of all means recognizing one another as brothers and sisters.
Pope tells reporters dialogue is always the answer to tense situations December 2, 2025By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service Filed Under: Ecumenism and Interfaith Relations, News, Vatican, World News At the end of his first foreign trip as pope, a trip focused on dialogue, Pope Leo XIV said the examples of friendship and respect he had seen could be a helpful example for people in North America and Europe, too.
Ecumenism is not ‘absorption or domination,’ but sharing gifts, pope says November 30, 2025By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service Filed Under: Ecumenism and Interfaith Relations, News, Vatican, World News As he had done throughout his visit to Turkey, Pope Leo XIV spent his last morning in the country reaffirming the Catholic Church’s commitment to the search for Christian unity.
Though Nicaea is a ruin, its Creed stands and unites Christians, pope says November 28, 2025By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service Filed Under: Ecumenism and Interfaith Relations, Feature, News, Vatican, World News Although the ancient city of Nicaea lies in ruins and the geographic center of Christianity has shifted West, Pope Leo XIV and Christian leaders gathered at an archaeological site in Turkey to celebrate the enduring faith set out in the Nicene Creed.
Catholic scholar quits Heritage over its president’s defense of Tucker Carlson interview November 19, 2025By Gina Christian OSV News Filed Under: Ecumenism and Interfaith Relations, News, World News Prominent Catholic philosophical and legal scholar Robert P. George has resigned from the board of the conservative Heritage Foundation, saying he “could not remain” without its president fully retracting a video defending a controversial interview, platforming a leading white supremacist, that has split conservatives over the issue of antisemitism.
Vatican says Swiss Guards investigating alleged antisemitic gesture November 10, 2025By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service Filed Under: Ecumenism and Interfaith Relations, News, Vatican, World News The Vatican press office confirmed the Pontifical Swiss Guard is investigating an incident involving one of the guards who has been accused of making an antisemitic gesture.
Pope welcomes election of new major archbishop for Romanian church November 7, 2025By Catholic News Service Catholic News Service Filed Under: Ecumenism and Interfaith Relations, News, Vatican, World News VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Remembering the generations of bishops, priests and laypeople martyred for their Catholic faith under communism in Romania, Pope Leo XIV welcomed the election of a new head of the Romanian Greek Catholic Church. The bishops of the church elected 53-year-old Bishop Claudiu-Lucian Pop as the major archbishop of Fagaras and Alba Iulia and head of the church; Pope Leo gave his assent in a letter published Nov. 6. He succeeds Cardinal Lucian Muresan, who died Sept. 25 at the age of 94. Congratulating the new archbishop, Pope Leo prayed that he would prove to be “a shepherd who, according to the heart of Christ, tends diligently the flock entrusted to you.” “May the Holy Spirit guide you, Beatitude, in the ministry to which the Lord has called you, that you may promote the communion and the mission of the Romanian Greek Catholic Church, so that it may grow and prosper, ever mindful of the many martyrs and confessors who, by the witness of their lives, have inscribed indelible and glorious pages in the history of faith,” the pope added. The Romanian Greek Catholic Church was banned by the communist government in 1948 and was able to fully emerge from an underground existence only with the end of communism in 1990. Archbishop Pop was born July 22, 1972, in Piscolt. He studied in Rome at the Pontifical Urbanian University and the Pontifical Gregorian University before being ordained to the priesthood in 1995. Pope Benedict XVI named him a bishop in 2011, and he was assigned to the Eparchy of Cluj-Gherla in 2021. The Romanian Greek Catholic Church is one of 23 Eastern-rite churches in full communion with Rome. A major archbishop has authority similar to that of the Eastern Catholic patriarchs, and the key decisions of their churches, including the election of bishops in their home territories, is made by their synods of bishops.
