Papal Spain trip: 2.5 million participants, revenue over $174 million, spiritual boost priceless June 17, 2026By Junno Arocho Esteves OSV News Filed Under: Feature, News, Vatican, World News Despite minor setbacks, including the last-minute thwarting of a separatist demonstration and the grounding of the papal flight to Rome, organizers said Pope Leo XIV’s weeklong visit to Spain was an overwhelming success.
Pope Leo praises newly beatified Salesian martyrs killed for their fidelity to Christ June 16, 2026By Katarzyna Szalajko OSV News Filed Under: Feature, News, Saints, Vatican, World News Nine Polish Salesian priests killed in German Nazi concentration camps during World War II were beatified June 6 at the Sanctuary of St. John Paul II in Kraków during a Mass that highlighted not only their martyrdom but also their lives as educators, pastors and mentors to young people.
Pope Leo XIV approves new statutes for child protection commission June 15, 2026By Junno Arocho Esteves OSV News Filed Under: Child & Youth Protection, Feature, News, Vatican, World News Pope Leo XIV approved new statutes for the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors that seek to balance its integration with the Roman Curia while preserving its independence.
Tower of Jesus Christ inauguration: How Sagrada Família’s breathtaking spectacle came to life June 12, 2026By Ines San Martin OSV News Filed Under: Feature, News, Vatican, World News As hundreds of drones illuminated the night sky above Barcelona’s Sagrada Família, or Basilica of the Holy Family, forming the image of Antoni Gaudí and one of the architect’s most enduring maxims — “First love, then technique” — the message seemed almost paradoxical.
Pope Leo: Whoever immerses in the Sacred Heart no longer lives for themselves June 12, 2026By Junno Arocho Esteves OSV News Filed Under: Feature, News, Vatican, World News At the final Mass of his visit to Spain, Pope Leo XIV called on Christians to look beyond the allure of commerce and profit and instead embrace the vocation of hospitality and the wisdom that comes from the encounter with the vulnerable and the suffering.
Pope Leo tells trafficking survivors God recognizes their ‘inestimable worth’ during Canary Islands visit June 11, 2026By Courtney Mares OSV News Filed Under: Feature, Immigration and Migration, News, Vatican, World News Pope Leo delivered a powerful message to human trafficking survivors June 11 during the first stop of a two-day visit to Spain’s Canary Islands, one of Europe’s closest points of entry from the African coast.
Pope Leo blesses Sagrada Familia’s Tower of Jesus, says beauty can lead people to God June 11, 2026By Courtney Mares OSV News Filed Under: Feature, News, Vatican, World News Pope Leo XIV blessed the newly completed Tower of Jesus Christ at Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia basilica June 10, inaugurating the crowning spire that makes the iconic church the tallest Catholic church the world and urging people to lift their gaze to Christ “who alone reveals to us the truth about God and the truth about ourselves.”
‘Peace cannot be attained without mercy,’ Pope Leo tells global congress in Lithuania’s capital June 10, 2026By Katarzyna Szalajko OSV News Filed Under: Feature, News, Vatican, World News As Catholics from around the world gathered in Vilnius, Lithuania, for the sixth World Apostolic Congress on Mercy, Pope Leo XIV said the world’s growing need for peace cannot be separated from mercy, urging believers to become witnesses of God’s compassion in a time marked by war, violence and uncertainty.
Don’t let painful past overshadow hopeful future, pope tells Barcelona inmates June 10, 2026By Junno Arocho Esteves OSV News Filed Under: Feature, News, Vatican, World News Amid the loneliness and despair of life behind bars, God continues to love and encourage the imprisoned to not let the sorrows of their past deter them from the hope of a better future, Pope Leo XIV told prisoners in Barcelona.
US bishops thank pope for encyclical and shining ‘light of Gospel’ on AI, tech advances June 10, 2026By OSV News OSV News Filed Under: AI, Feature, News, Vatican, World News The U.S. bishops in a message to Pope Leo XIV June 10 thanked him for his new encyclical “Magnifica Humanitas” and for shining “the light of the Gospel and the tradition of the Church on the new opportunities and challenges posed by the rise” of artificial intelligence and “emerging technologies.”
Pope Leo XIV arrives in Barcelona on eve of Gaudí’s 100th death anniversary June 10, 2026By Courtney Mares OSV News Filed Under: Feature, News, Vatican, World News Nearly 100 years after the death of “God’s architect” Antoni Gaudí, Pope Leo XIV arrived in Barcelona on June 9 for a two-day visit to the Catalan capital that will culminate in the inauguration of the crowning tower of his unfinished masterpiece, the Sagrada Família, or Basilica of the Holy Family.
Pope Leo XIV briefly meets Bad Bunny in Madrid June 9, 2026By Maria Wiering OSV News Filed Under: Feature, News, Vatican, World News Pope Leo XIV met the Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny in Madrid June 8, after joking days earlier that he would be vying against the singer for Spaniards’ attention as their tours in Spain’s capital overlapped.
