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.

An authentic Christian community knows how to sincerely and joyfully welcome everyone: Catholics, non-Catholics and people of no faith at all, Pope Leo XIV said.

Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk spoke with Pope Leo at the Apostolic Palace Feb. 12, the second personal audience the prelate has had since meeting with the pope days after his election, said the UGCC press office in an update released shortly after the meeting.

Pope Leo XIV has appointed Croatian Vincentian Sister Nina Benedikta Krapic as the deputy director of the Holy See Press Office.

The ancient practice of fasting from food during Lent can free us from complacency and lead us to “hunger” for God, Pope Leo XIV said in his 2026 Lenten message.