Japanese Cardinal Isao Kikuchi of Tokyo says Pope Leo XIV’s previous work as a mi-ssionary and as a Vatican official were important reasons he will make a good pontiff. Speaking to the Catholic Herald, the cardinal gave his reflections on the election of American Cardinal Robert Francis Pre-vost, a member of the Augusti-nian order, to the Chair of Peter on May 8.
“Pope Leo XIV has a rich background in missionary work, especially in Peru, where he served both as a missionary and later as a bishop. He also led the Augustinian Order as its Superior General and most recently served as Prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Bishops, giving him deep experience in both pastoral and administration in the Church and also as an effective and reliable leader,” Kikuchi said.
“During the general con-gregation, many cardinals reflected on the importance of the leadership of Pope Francis, especially his courage and wisdom to lead the People of God,” the Japanese cardinal said. “However, we all understood that we were not looking for a second Pope Francis, photocopy of Pope Francis, but a true successor to Saint Peter, who would faithfully guide the Church according to God’s will and responding to the trust given by Jesus,” he said.
“Many expressed that we need a pope who has deep experience and knowledge in both pastoral and administration of the Church with deep spirituality. Many expressed the need to have pastoral minded Pope to continue the footpath of Pope Francis and deepen the path of synodality,” Kikuchi continued.
“Many expressed that we need Pope to run the Curia well with the mind of restructuring began by Pope Francis. Also many expressed that we need a pope with deep spirituality and sound understanding of the faith to unite all in the Church. There were not so many cardinals among us who could be fit into this category and Cardinal Prevost was just the man to fulfill all these requirements,” he explained. Kikuchi said that after some votes, it was clear for all cardinals in the conclave that Prevost “is the one who had already chosen by Jesus himself: We finally found him.

People in Indonesia’s Chri-stian-majority, strife-torn Papua expressed hope that newly elected Pope Leo XIV, who visited the region twenty years ago, will pay attention to their ongoing plight and challenges. The optimism sparked after Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost was elected the successor of late Pope Francis in the Vatican on May 8, becoming the first pope from the United States.
Following the election, several photos from his visit to Papua in 2003 have been widely shared on social media sites, triggering enthusiastic reactions from Papuan netizens. One photo shows Father Prevost posing for a photo with several nuns, another shows he is eating a Papuan dish called papeda and talking to native Papuans.
Prevost visited Papua as the head of the Order of St. Augustine (OSA) to join the 50th anniversary of the order’s arrival in the region. Over the past decades, the order has been involved in various social services including running seminaries and schools.
Both online and offline, Papuans expressed optimism that the new pope’s experience and under-standing of Papua will allow him to pay attention to their problems. Activists, church circles, and academics have often called for dialogue between Jakarta and Papua as an effort to end the conflict. During Pope Francis’ visit to Jakarta in September last year, Papuans expressed their concern by carrying out the ‘Way of the Cross’ rally.
Bishop-elect Bernardus Bofitwos Baru of Timika says the new pope is aware of challenges Papuans face every day because he knows the ground situation from Augustinian members. “Pope Leo XIV has the opportunity to help reduce the conflict in Papua with his position as the highest leader of the Catholic Church,” Baru told.

More than 30,000 people took part in the “Hee Hee Hee” Youth Festival in Seoul, South Korea, from May 9 to 11, a large-scale, youth-led celebration organized by the Archdiocese of Seoul and the Local Organizing Committee for World Youth Day (WYD) 2027. Organizers said the festival aimed to offer “a vibrant, youth-led celebration of faith, vocation, and community” through programs inspired by the Korean characters for “Light,” “Hope,” and “Joy.”
Young people played a central role in planning and executing the festival, which featured thematic zones, concerts, liturgical cele-brations, and interactive exhibits. According to organizers, the event welcomed “people of all ages, nationalities, and religious back-grounds, creating a space of shared joy and intercultural dialogue.”
Structured to mirror elements of WYD, the Seoul gathering included catechesis, witness talks, creative performances, a prayer vigil, and a concluding Mass held on May 11 at the Catholic Uni-versity Sungsin Campus, also known as the “Truth Zone.”
Presiding over the Mass, Archbishop Peter Soon-taick Chung of Seoul urged young people to listen to God’s call. “In a special way this year, as we journey toward the 2027 World Youth Day within the grace of the Jubilee Year, I earnestly hope that the ‘Hee, Hee, Hee’ Youth Festival will inspire more young people to open their hearts to the Lord’s call and respond with courage and faith,” he said in his homily.
“The Church thrives and bears fruit when it gives rise to new vocations,” he added. “In many ways, the world is, perhaps unknowingly, yearning for ‘witnesses of hope’—those who testify through their very lives that following Christ is the wellspring of true joy.”
An estimated 3,500 people attended the Mass, which featured music, testimonies, and a strong focus on vocational discernment.

Church leaders joined poll watchdogs and activist groups in denouncing the violence, vote-buying and rigging reported during the May 12 midterm ele-ctions in the Catholic-majority Philippines. “The people have spoken, but it was not a perfect discourse. Money tainted it. Blood stained it. It was blotted by lies,” Archbishop Socrates Villegas of Lingayen-Dagupan wrote on social media on May 13.
Villegas, a former president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, said the midterm election ”was coloured with vulgarity.” “Really and truly, no elections are perfect. We keep on hoping. We have leveled up a bit, but the mountain peak is still far from sight. Be critical so that govern-ment services can level up even more. There is so much to impro-ve on,” the archbishop added. He further said that losing or winn-ing in the elections has “lessons to teach” and urged Filipinos “not to get carried away by the glee or the grief. Commission on Elections (Comelec) chairman George Erwin Garcia said the May 12 mid-term polls have been the most peaceful so far in terms of election-related violence. The poll body chief claimed at a press conference in Manila on May 12 that the 44 incidents of violence were much lower compared with the 128 incidents in 2019 and around 120 in 2020.
A day after the midterm elections, some 200 members of various groups led by poll watchdog Kontra Daya and progressive group Makabayan, protested in the capital, Manila, against alleged irregularities and voter disenfranchisement.

A Myanmar junta airstrike hit a school on May 12, killing 22 people, including 20 children, witnesses said, despite a purported humanitarian ceasefire called to help the Southeast Asian nation recover from a devastating earthquake.
The strike hit a school in the village of Oe Htein Kwin – around 100 kilometres (65 miles) northwest of the epicentre of the March 28 quake – at about 10:00 am (0330 GMT), locals said.
UN chief Antonio Guterres is “deeply alarmed” by reports of the strike, his spokes-man told reporters in New York, adding that “schools must remain areas in which children have a safe place to learn and not be bombed.”
The green school building was a shattered husk on May 12 afternoon, its metal roof crumpled with gaping holes blasted through its brickwork walls.
Over a dozen abandoned book bags were piled before a pole flying the Myanmar flag outside, as parents chiselled small graves out of the hard earth to bury the shrouded bodies of their children.
“For now 22 people in total – 20 children and two teachers – have been killed,” said a 34-year-old teacher at the school, asking to remain anonymous.
“We tried to spread out the children, but the fighter was too fast and dropped its bombs,” she added. “I haven’t been able to collect all the casualty data as parents are in a rush.”
An education official from the area of the village in Sagaing region gave the same toll. The junta information team said reports of the strike were “fabricated news.” “There was no airstrike on non-military targets,” it said in a statement.

One of the most touching deeds that made Pope Francis go down in history was his 2017 visit to Bangladesh, which included a meeting in Dhaka with a group of Rohingya refugees who had fled violence in Myanmar.
Silent tears and heartfelt words that marked the embrace moved the world and became a symbol of his deep commitment to justice and compassion. On that occasion, Francis prayed with the Rohingya.
Since then, he has often reminded the world of their suffering. More than a million Rohingya live in Bangladesh, forcibly displaced from Myanmar where they are persecuted.
“Even though we are few and often forgotten – dispersed, marginalised, and afflicted – we grieve with the global Church,” said Peter Saiful, a representative of the small Rohingya Catholic community, also displaced in Bangladesh, speaking to AsiaNews.
“Pope Francis was a beacon of hope for the marginalised, a voice for the voiceless, and a man whose humility touched hearts across all boundaries,” Saiful explained. “As members of a persecuted and displaced people, we saw in Pope Francis the living compassion and solidarity of Christ. That encounter during his visit is a deeply moving and unforgettable moment in our community’s history.”
Pope Francis liked to say: “You cannot be a Christian without living like a Christian, and you cannot be a Christian without practising the Beatitudes. And one of the Beatitudes is to welcome the stranger.” Rohingya Christians are grateful to God for the pope’s life and ministry, dedicated to justice, peace and the unity of God’s people.

Long queues of faithful are openly and freely honouring Pope Francis in cathedrals. An official paid homage to the late pontiff on behalf of the government by burning incense in front of the pope’s portrait at the headquarters of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Vietnam (CBCV). While analysts are trying to read some hidden meaning in the two lines of condolence published in China by the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, the pope’s death showed where the seed of dialogue is already bearing much fruit, namely in China’s neighbour Vietnam, which offers a model for the delicate path relations between the Holy See and China could take.
The news of Francis’s death reached Vietnam on April 21 just as the country’s Catholic bishops were gathered for the spring session of their assembly. Quickly, a delegation led by the CBCV president, Archbishop Giuse (Joseph) NguyÅn Nãng of Ho Chi Minh City, left for Rome to take part in the pontiff’s funeral while the websites of the dioceses were filled with news about Pope Francis, stories from Rome, and the condolences from Vietnamese Catholics.

High-ranking heads of state and Catholic bishops in China have remained notably silent following the death of Pope Francis, while reactions from political and religious leaders across the globe poured out on social media within hours of the pope’s passing on Monday morning.
AsiaNews reported on April 22 that Chinese officials are not permitted to express themselves publicly on Pope Francis’ death due the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s control over the Church there. The Chinese government offered a brief statement nearly 24 hours after the Holy Father’s passing, only after reporters asked foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun about it on April 22.
“China expresses its condo-lences for the death of Pope Francis,” he said, adding that “in recent years, China and the Vati-can have maintained constructive contacts and engaged in useful exchanges. China is ready to work with the Vatican to promote the continuous improvement of China-Vatican relations.”
Notably, the CCP posted a tribute to Pope Benedict XVI after his passing two years ago, stating: “We entrust Benedict XVI to God’s mercy and ask him to grant him eternal rest in heaven.” Several days have passed since Pope Francis’ death with no similar statement from the CCP.
“I mean, it’s really astonishing because they have an agreement with the Vatican,” Hudson Institute Fellow Nina Shea told CNA on Wednesday. ”It’s a refle-ction of their refusal to acknow-ledge the supremacy of the papal authority over the Catholic Church and that they see the pope only in secular terms as a head of state, the Holy See.”
The Vatican-China agreement to allow Chinese-appointed bishops in the Catholic Church was renewed last year and is set to remain intact until October 2028, despite numerous reports of Chinese violations of the deal and continued persecution against Catholic bishops.
“The absence of condolen-ces,” Shea said, “is a sign that they do not see the pope as the religious head of the Catholic Church and they do not want their people to associate the pope, the papacy, with the Catholic Church in China.”

The Philippines made history this year on April 27, Divine Mercy Sunday, by becoming the first nation in the world to consecrate itself entirely to Jesus through divine mercy.
In 2016 at the Pan-African Congress on Divine Mercy Sunday in Rwanda, bishops in Africa consecrated the continent itself to divine mercy. However, the Philippines is the first singular nation to do so.
“This is remarkable; this is really unprecedented. Never has this been done before in the history of the world – a country consecrating themselves to the divine mercy,” said Father James Cervantes of the Marians of the Immaculate Conception (MIC), a congregation devoted to spreading the message of divine mercy. “I believe the bishops are being inspired by the Holy Spirit to lead our country to holiness.”
The bold initiative began with a single spark – a heartfelt letter from Cervantes to bishops across the country calling for a nationwide consecration to divine mercy. Dioceses responded enthusiastically, and soon the idea spread like wildfire.
The Permanent Council of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) gave its official approval, declaring that a national consecration to divine mercy will take place during all Masses on April 27 as part of the 2025 Jubilee Year celebrations.
Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David, president of the CBCP, issued a statement calling on all dioceses, parishes, religious communities, and Catholic institutions to participate in this landmark spiritual initiative.

“Pope Francis related to all, with the broken, the forgotten, and the earth itself. He made room in his heart for those the world pushed aside. And so now, as the world mourns him, we feel the sorrow that always follows great love.”
In a wide-ranging interview with Vatican News, Cardinal Charles Maung Bo, Archbishop of Yangon and President of Myanmar’s Bishops’ Conference, who served two terms as the President of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences, remembered the late Pope Francis in this way following his return to the Lord on 21 April.
Cardinal Bo had the joy of being named by Pope Francis as the first-ever Cardinal of Myanmar, and of welcoming the Holy Father to his nation in November 2017.
Remembering Pope Francis’ historic Apostolic Journey to his nation, the Cardinal said, “Despite significant pressure from various quarters urging him not to visit our country, and despite the many challenges that loomed large, Pope Francis chose to come. And in doing so, he shone a great light upon the suffering of our people.”
In fact, the Cardinal remembers, “Pope Francis had a profound affection for the people of Asia,” adding, “he fell in love with the people of Myanmar.”
Over the years, the Pope has made constant appeals for Myanmar, for peace and for aid, and even before his passing, not only did he express his condolences for all those affected by the tragic quake, but he also offered sustenance to help the suffering population.
As of April 19, 2025, the death toll from the 7.7-magnitude earthquake that struck Myanmar on March 28 stood at 3,726, with 5,105 injured and 129 still missing. The disaster has compounded Myanmar’s existing humanitarian crisis, with nearly 20 million people in need of aid due to ongoing civil conflict.