Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel laureate María Corina Machado asked for Pope Leo XIV’s help in securing the release of political prisoners in the country following the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

Just as we wouldn’t leave newborns without clothes or food, we cannot leave them without faith and baptism, Pope Leo XIV told parents of children he baptized in the splendor and beauty of the Sistine Chapel Jan. 11.

Pope Leo XIV strongly condemned the Church’s failure to welcome survivors of sexual abuse, calling it a “scandal” that deepens their suffering, even though the issue was not a main topic at the Jan. 7-8 extraordinary consistory in Rome.

Pope Leo XIV embraced the youth of Rome — both literally and with his words — during a Jan. 10 meeting with the young people of the Diocese of Rome, telling them to choose real relationships over digital isolation.

Pope Leo XIV and members of his College of Cardinals have begun what is a kind of synodal journey together to grow in communion and discern together “what the Lord is asking of us for the good of his people.”

With the jubilee year now officially ended, the pope’s travel schedule is also expected to ramp up, with one trip especially dear to the pontiff just confirmed: a June visit to Madrid, Barcelona and the Canary Islands.

Pope Leo XIV strongly defended the family, marriage and unborn life during his first-ever New Year’s address to the diplomatic corps Jan. 9, telling the diplomats accredited to the Holy See that abortion “cuts short a growing life and refuses to welcome the gift of life.”

After an intense day of roundtable discussions, the “low-batteried” but “very pleased” cardinals wrapped the first historic extraordinary consistory convened by Pope Leo XIV in a spirit of fraternity, with a sense of knowing each other better and saying they “discovered” the pope, while he did “more listening than talking.”

Pope Leo XIV gathered cardinals present for the extraordinary consistory this week for an early morning Mass Jan. 8 in St. Peter’s Basilica, telling them they’re together not to promote “agendas,” but to take part in a “discernment” that “comes from the Lord.”

The teachings of the Second Vatican Council are still “the guiding star” the Catholic Church is meant to follow, Pope Leo XIV said.