By all appearances, January’s consistory was a first step to returning to a more collegial sense of governance that has largely marked the exercise of papal ministry since the Second Vatican Council.

Pope Leo XIV, who plays the daily online puzzle Wordle, is not the only papal puzzle lover.

Surrogacy violates the dignity of both unborn children and pregnant women, reducing them to mere commodities and victims of exploitation, said Archbishop Paul R. Gallagher, the Vatican foreign minister.

Pope Leo XIV met Jan. 15 with the families of victims of the Crans-Montana bar fire on New Year’s night, which took the lives of 40 people and injured 116 in a Swiss resort tragedy.

The Vatican has completed the official mosaic portrait of Pope Leo XIV, continuing a centuries-old tradition that marks the election of each new pontiff. The circular mosaic, known as a tondo, was created by the Vatican Mosaic Studio of the Fabric of St. Peter’s and will be installed in the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls.

As the Catholic Church prepares to join Christians around the world in commemorating the 2026 Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, the theme chosen also reflects Pope Leo XIV’s hope of unified humanity in an increasingly individualistic world.

If Christians are to speak about God, then they must dedicate time each day and week to listening to God’s word in prayer and the liturgy, Pope Leo XIV said.

Speaking to a crowd of about 300 Jan. 9 at St. Louis in Clarksville, part of a pastorate with St. Francis of Assisi in Fulton, George Weigel urged Catholics to resist snap judgments about the new pope and instead understand the complex moment he has inherited. 

Pope Leo has established that from Jan. 10, following the closing of the church’s Jubilee Year, until Jan. 10, 2027, a special Year of St. Francis may be proclaimed, in which every Christian, “following the example of the Saint of Assisi, may himself become a model of holiness of life and a constant witness of peace.”

While Catholics have been accustomed to the famed silver papal staff featuring the suffering of Christ crucified and used by the pontiffs for decades, a new staff, or crosier, used by Pope Leo XIV, emphasized the victory of the risen Christ over death.