While Satan tempts humanity with the lie of gaining unlimited power, God offers the gift of true freedom that leads to real love, relationships and fulfillment, Pope Leo XIV said.

St. Peter’s Basilica inaugurated a new Stations of the Cross Feb. 20, with paintings by a young Swiss artist who won the Vatican’s international art competition and said in an interview with OSV News that he was deeply moved by the experience of painting St. Veronica’s encounter with Christ.

Four hundred years after its consecration, St. Peter’s Basilica is getting a 21st-century upgrade, with the Vatican unveiling plans for AI-powered translation services, expanded pilgrim access and high-tech structural monitoring as part of yearlong anniversary celebrations.

So began the first steps on the artistic road that led Moran, 62, a parishioner of Our Lady of Grace in Edina, to complete an oil painting of Pope Leo for the refectory of the Pontifical North American College, the major seminary for American seminarians studying in Rome.

The Society of St. Pius X has rejected a Vatican offer of dialogue and said it will move forward with plans to ordain bishops without a papal mandate this summer.

Pope Leo XIV will travel to six destinations across Italy this year, the Vatican announced on Feb. 19, journeying from the shrine of Our Lady of the Rosary of Pompeii in the south to the tomb of St. Augustine in northern Italy.

Pope Leo XIV reminded members of the Legionaries of Christ that exercising governance and authority is meant as a service and not as a means to control others.

The Holy See “will not participate” in President Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace” for Gaza, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state, said Feb. 17, citing “points that leave us somewhat perplexed.”

Beneath the Roman pines of the Aventine Hill, Pope Leo XIV led a solemn penitential procession Feb. 18 to Rome’s oldest extant basilica, marking the first Ash Wednesday of his pontificate with a call for “countercultural” repentance for sins from individuals, institutions and the Church itself.

On Ash Wednesday, Pope Leo XIV encouraged Catholics to ask the Lord for “the gift of true conversion” at the start of the 40-day penitential season of Lent.