Pope Leo XIV will travel to six destinations across Italy this year, the Vatican announced on Feb. 19, journeying from the shrine of Our Lady of the Rosary of Pompeii in the south to the tomb of St. Augustine in northern Italy.

A young man painting a chapel in Puebla was killed when gunmen shot at a work crew involved in community service in what was the second recent act of violence targeting churches in one of Mexico’s largest and most traditionally Catholic cities.

Pope Leo XIV reminded members of the Legionaries of Christ that exercising governance and authority is meant as a service and not as a means to control others.

The USCCB Committee for Religious Liberty issued Feb. 17 its “Annual Report on the State of Religious Liberty,” which highlights the legislative actions, executive actions, and U.S. Supreme Court cases the U.S. bishops are closely watching.

Catholic leaders were among those who praised the legacy of the Rev. Jesse Jackson, a Baptist minister and prominent civil rights leader, who died Feb. 17. He was 84.

As Lent begins, Catholic leaders across Eastern Africa are urging prayers — and action — for millions facing a deepening drought crisis.

Ahead of the USCCB collection — typically held on Ash Wednesday (Feb. 18) in most dioceses, and which can be supported online anytime at igivecatholic.org/story/USCCB-CCEE — OSV News spoke with Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, father and head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, to discuss the impact of the USCCB’s appeal in Ukraine.

A deadly shooting erupted during a boys hockey game in Rhode Island, involving a co-op with a number of players reported to be from an area Catholic school, and may have been motivated by what law enforcement characterized as a “family dispute.”

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.