Having seminarians join the five or six other young adult “perpetual pilgrims” and their priest and religious brother chaplains on each route provides the young men “a unique formational opportunity” that allows them “to also be a witness to other young men who may be discerning a vocation to the priesthood,” said Joel Stepanek, vice president of programming and administration for National Eucharistic Congress Inc.

The archbishop of Madrid received unusual guests June 2 as Europe’s best soccer team, Real Madrid, came to the Spanish capital’s St. Mary the Royal of the Almudena Cathedral to offer its championship trophy to Mary.

Pope Francis began a meeting with participants in a Focolare-sponsored conference by telling the movement’s president, “I pray for your homeland; I pray so much for your homeland, which is suffering at this time.”

Workers need spaces in which they can come together, form a sense of community and advocate for the marginalized, Pope Francis said.

Every encounter with people on the move as migrants or refugees is an encounter with Christ, Pope Francis said.

When Catholics carry the Eucharist through the streets, “we are not doing this to show off or to flaunt our faith” but to invite others to share in the life that Jesus gives by making himself a gift, Pope Francis said.

Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, said allowing Ukraine to use NATO weapons to attack military targets in Russia would lead to “an escalation that no one will be able to control anymore.”

Forty-five years ago, on June 2, St. John Paul II started his first papal pilgrimage to his native Poland, then shackled by a communist dictatorship. The visit had not only an enormous impact on the spiritual renewal of the Polish nation, paving the way for democratic changes, but it also inspired future freedom fighters in other parts of the Soviet empire.

The Catholic Church in France prepares to commemorate the 80th anniversary of Normandy landings June 6, a date known as D-Day that marked the beginning of the liberation of France and Europe from Nazi Germany’s occupation during World War II.

U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See Joe Donnelly will leave his post in July, the embassy announced.