Government officials, scientists, business leaders, activists and others from more than 190 nations will gather for the U.N.’s COP30, which will take place Nov. 10-21 in Belém, Brazil.

Bishop David J. Bonnar of Youngstown, Ohio, has moved to end holding funeral visitations in Catholic churches in that diocese, citing the proper understanding of the Catholic funeral liturgy rubrics — as well as the disruption such viewings can cause in sacred spaces.

As the international community rightly focuses on resolving war and conflict, countries must recognize that “peace is also threatened” by climate change and environmental destruction, the pope said in a message to the Leaders Summit of COP30 in Belem, Brazil.

Being a missionary means bringing the Gospel and its values into the world and transforming the lives of individuals, which can and must transform societies, Pope Leo XIV said.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal invited various faith leaders to express their feelings on SNAP cuts detailed in the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” and the Trump administration’s refusal to use emergency funds to fund the program amid the government shutdown, causing many of the 42 million Americans who rely on SNAP — the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — to find alternative ways to eat.

Pope Leo XIV said artificial intelligence should support the church’s mission of evangelization, urging Catholic technologists and venture capitalists gathered in Rome to build systems that help spread the Gospel.

During the pontificate of Pope Francis, the papal laundries for the poor were traditionally named after the pope. Pope Leo XIV asked that during his pontificate, they be named after St. Francis of Assisi.

During its 2025 fall plenary assembly, which will take place Nov. 10-13 in Baltimore, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops will consider possible revisions to its “Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services,” or ERD, document.

A federal appeals court will hear arguments in January about state laws in Texas and Louisiana requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public school classrooms.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Remembering the generations of bishops, priests and laypeople martyred for their Catholic faith under communism in Romania, Pope Leo XIV welcomed the election of a new head of the Romanian Greek Catholic Church.

The bishops of the church elected 53-year-old Bishop Claudiu-Lucian Pop as the major archbishop of Fagaras and Alba Iulia and head of the church; Pope Leo gave his assent in a letter published Nov. 6.

He succeeds Cardinal Lucian Muresan, who died Sept. 25 at the age of 94.

Congratulating the new archbishop, Pope Leo prayed that he would prove to be “a shepherd who, according to the heart of Christ, tends diligently the flock entrusted to you.”

“May the Holy Spirit guide you, Beatitude, in the ministry to which the Lord has called you, that you may promote the communion and the mission of the Romanian Greek Catholic Church, so that it may grow and prosper, ever mindful of the many martyrs and confessors who, by the witness of their lives, have inscribed indelible and glorious pages in the history of faith,” the pope added.

The Romanian Greek Catholic Church was banned by the communist government in 1948 and was able to fully emerge from an underground existence only with the end of communism in 1990.

Archbishop Pop was born July 22, 1972, in Piscolt. He studied in Rome at the Pontifical Urbanian University and the Pontifical Gregorian University before being ordained to the priesthood in 1995.

Pope Benedict XVI named him a bishop in 2011, and he was assigned to the Eparchy of Cluj-Gherla in 2021.

The Romanian Greek Catholic Church is one of 23 Eastern-rite churches in full communion with Rome. A major archbishop has authority similar to that of the Eastern Catholic patriarchs, and the key decisions of their churches, including the election of bishops in their home territories, is made by their synods of bishops.