Pope Leo XIV will preside over a worldwide rosary for peace May 30, uniting Marian shrines across continents in simultaneous prayer to close the Catholic Church’s month of devotion to the Virgin Mary.

Fifty members of Congress offered their support to a lawsuit by the U.S. Catholic bishops’ conference and other Catholic organizations seeking to block a federal agency from enforcing an abortion provision within a set of federal regulations meant to add workplace protections for pregnant workers.

Farming, even in the best of times, can be a rather precarious vocation. It’s dangerous work, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration; it’s economically volatile, due to high production costs and fluctuations in market prices; there are climate risks from droughts, floods, and pests.

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene in the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ efforts to dismiss a lawsuit alleging it misled donors about the purposes of the annual Peter’s Pence collection.

Because J.R.R. Tolkien was a serious Catholic, one might assume that religion would be evident in his literary masterpiece. Yet, there is no religion in “The Lord of the Rings.” There is magic and even glimpses of the demonic, but the world Tolkien creates is a world wholly contained within itself. It is a large world, an old world, even a mythological world in its own way, but everything is within that world.

Amid renewed tensions between the Vatican and traditionalist Catholics over the teachings of the Second Vatican Council, Pope Leo XIV defended Church reform as a legitimate process that adapts to current needs while remaining rooted in authentic tradition.

As the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage continued to make its way up the East Coast, it took a day to encounter Friar Pedro de Corpa and Companions, the five Franciscan friars — also known as the Georgia Martyrs — who will be beatified Oct. 31 in Savannah, Georgia.

From Pope Leo XIV and the highest ranking woman at the Vatican to an ambassador and governor, the 2026 graduates at U.S. Catholic colleges and universities heard faith-filled words of encouragement, challenge and inspiration to take with them into the world beyond campus.

On May 15, 2026 — the 135th anniversary of “Rerum Novarum” — Pope Leo XIV signed his first encyclical, “Magnifica Humanitas.” The date was deliberate.

Amid the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence and digital media, Pope Leo XIV is calling on families, schools and policymakers to forge an “educational alliance for the digital age” to protect the dignity and intellectual development of young people.