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.

Former President Barack Obama said in a YouTube interview posted Feb. 14 he wants to meet Pope Leo XIV.

Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, strongly criticized the U.S.-led Board of Peace, an international body chaired by President Donald Trump to oversee the governance and reconstruction of Gaza.

Msgr. Figueiredo was able to arrange for the group to receive an audience with Pope Leo and to have their school be named during the ceremony.