Pope Leo XIV will carry the cross himself through all 14 stations of the Way of the Cross at Rome’s Colosseum on the first Good Friday of his pontificate.

Pope Leo XIV has appointed four U.S.-based scholars and leaders as members of the Dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development.

Pope Leo XIV named Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, the substitute secretary for general affairs at the Vatican Secretariat of State, as the apostolic nuncio to Italy and the Republic of San Marino, the Vatican said.

Marking the start of Holy Week, Pope Leo XIV used his first Palm Sunday Mass to issue a forceful plea for peace, urging an end to war as he reflected on Christ’s Passion.

In the principality known for super yachts and sports cars, Pope Leo XIV urged Monaco’s wealthy citizens to remember the poor and protect every human life, calling on them to remember that the Last Judgment “places the poor at its center.”

As Pope Leo XIV prepares to visit Monaco March 28, Americans will no doubt be reminded of another U.S.-born Catholic monarch — the actress-made-princess Grace Kelly, who lived in Monaco following her marriage to its Sovereign Prince Rainier III in April 1956 until her untimely death in 1982.

The Vatican’s top diplomat to the United Nations condemned modern and historical slavery — while countering what he called a “partial narrative” in a newly adopted U.N. resolution denouncing the transatlantic slave trade as “the gravest crime against humanity.”

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen will be beatified on Sept. 24 in St. Louis, the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints announced March 25.

As Pope Leo XIV prepares to embark on a helicopter ride March 28 for a lightning-fast visit to the tiny city-state of Monaco, the journey is set to be a “laboratory of peace” in a wealthy land of “hidden poverties.”

Pope Leo XIV has shared his advice for how to discern one’s vocation, starting with the importance of creating space for interior silence to “hear what the Lord desires for our happiness.”