When Robert Francis Prevost stepped onto the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica one year ago May 8, he carried with him a piece of paper on which he had carefully written the first words he would utter as Pope Leo XIV. His first speech was, in ways that would only become clear over the year that followed, a preview of what was to come.

A new poll published the day after President Donald Trump renewed his series of social media and verbal attacks on Pope Leo XIV, showed Americans broadly disapprove.

Lebanese Catholic priests serving in the south of the country near the border with Israel said they were overjoyed to discover that a call with Lebanon’s papal nuncio included another special guest on the online visit, Pope Leo XIV.

Several Catholic aid organizations are affirming they remain “united in hope” for Ukraine, as Russia’s war on that nation relentlessly rages on.

The Catholic Church is the guardian of hope, whose members are called to speak clearly against all evil and in defense of human life, Pope Leo XIV said.

“The secret of happiness is to live moment by moment and to thank God for what he sends us each day.” This wise insight seems like something a good mother would say — and in this case, one did. It’s a gem from St. Gianna Molla, a Catholic wife, physician and mother who died in 1962 after selflessly prioritizing her unborn baby’s health over her own during a difficult pregnancy.

They walked over bridges and along rivers. They walked through cities and across farmland. They walked past apartments and colleges as frost dusted the morning grass.

President Donald Trump on May 5 continued his series of social media and verbal attacks on Pope Leo XIV, accusing him in a radio interview of “endangering” Catholics through his opposition to the Iran war.

Sister Consuelo Peset Laudeña’s morning routine is not what one would typically expect from an abbess. Before prayers and breakfast, she heads to inspect, one by one, cages housing 35 giant rabbits and their young inside the Convent of St. Anthony of Padua in Central Spain.

The first publicly recognized Black Catholic priest in the United States — who has already had 40 potential miracles through his intercession investigated — is now getting his own national shrine in western Illinois where he grew up and once served.