Archbishop of Toronto Cardi-nal Francis Leo called on the faithful to honour the most Sacred Heart of Jesus throughout the month of June rather than “using symbols that are contrary to God’s divine revelation.”
“This year the solemnity of the Sacred Heart is commemo-rated on June 27, though the entire month is dedicated to this long-standing and much appreciated devotion in the Church,” Leo said in a statement.
The month of June is a time to reflect on Jesus’ “loving, burn-ing, sacrificial, and life-giving heart,” which Leo called “one of the most profound and enduring symbols in Catholic devotional life.”
For Catholics, symbols “help us to deepen our faith and shape our prayer life, not to mention the lives we lead and the choices we make,” the cardinal said. “They are like bridges joining together the material and spiritual worlds and reveal to us the Gospel truths.”
Leo called on the faithful in Toronto to use symbols this month that “are consistent with our Catholic faith and not borrowed from ideological fora, promoted by lobby groups and endorsed by political movements.”
He said: “We ought to honour and respect our traditions and not compromise the integrity of the faith by using symbols that are contrary to God’s divine revelation.”
“We do good to use our own symbols to tell our own story without resorting to trendy, misguided, and inadequate symbols that do not represent us as Catholics but rather contribute to confusion, distortions, and ambiguities about what the Catholic faith truly teaches regarding the human person, human nature, and natural moral law.”

No longer relying on the State or police to find their missing loved ones, more than 200 groups of mothers and fathers, known as searchers, now dig with their own hands in vacant lots across Mexico. These families, living in anguish, act on anonymous tips about the locations of clandestine graves. Many such leads come through so-called “Peace Boxes,” installed in parishes throughout the country, where people can submit information anonymously. According to Mexico’s Ministry of the Interior, over 125,000 people have disappeared since 2006.
The Catholic Church, along with other organisations, accompanies these families in their pain and struggle, knowing that most of the disappeared have likely fallen victim to drug cartels or narco-political retaliation. Others may have been caught in the illegal human organ trade, which would explain the high number of young people, including children and infants, among the missing.
In March, national shock followed the discovery in Jalisco State of a site used by criminal groups as both a training ground and an extermination camp, complete with crematory ovens. Hundreds of charred human remains and over 1,800 personal items—including clothing, shoes, backpacks, and notebooks—were recovered at the so-called “Ranch of Horror.” Families were outraged to learn that police had previously dismissed the site’s significance. Mexico’s Episcopal Conference swiftly condemned the crimes as crimes against humanity, calling on authorities to break ties between drug trafficking and political sectors.
Bishop Acero, who in 2024 helped launch peace dialogues in Mexico, meets monthly with groups of searching mothers, creating spaces for empathy, mutual support, and the sharing of new
information.

Pope Leo XIV has reportedly updated his Peruvian national identity document (DNI) in the National Registry of Identification and Civil Status (RENIEC) of the South American country. Four Peruvian registrars from RENIEC visited the Pope on May 30th at the Vatican, and took his photograph for the Holy Father’s ID, which was taken that same Friday, the 30th. Robert Prevost Martinez’s previous ID number indicated the address in Chiclayo where he resided as Bishop. The new ID number will indicate the new Vatican address. Robert Prevost acquired Peruvian nationality in 2015 and obtained his first DNI in Lima. He obtained a DNI with a chip in 2016, which does not require renewal due to his age of 69. Peru’s Andina News Agency reported that Pope Leo XIV’s new update is the electronic DNI 3.0, issued by the Peruvian Government on April 15 and costing just over US$10. Pope Leo XIV has dual U.S. and Peruvian nationality. RENIEC officials also recorded the fingerprints and signature of «citizen Robert Prevost,» which would have been automatically entered into the administrative system for Peruvian citizens.
The Head of RENIEC, Carmen Velarde, told the Peruvian press: “What Pope Leo XIV has done confirms his attachment to the country and is also an act of responsibility. It is a message to all Peruvians to keep their national identity cards up to date. I thank the Holy Father for taking the time to update his document.” For her part, President Dina Boluarte emphasized that the granting of a Peruvian passport to Bishop Prevost in 2015 was obtained through the agreement between Peru and the Vatican, which establishes that Bishops in the country must have Peruvian nationality. However, the act was not “a merely formal gesture, but a profoundly spiritual and human one,” given that the new Pope dedicated a large part of his life to serving the country’s poorest. She also recalled that his pastoral work in Peru “sowed hope, walked with the most needy, and shared the joys of the Peruvian people.”

The vehicle, transformed with medical equipment and child-friendly interiors, was a final gesture of solidarity from the late Pope Francis before his death in April 2025. He entrusted it to Caritas Jerusalem with a simple but powerful mission: to reach Gaza’s youngest and most vulnerable–those wounded not only in body, but in spirit. It was once a symbol of joyful encounter. In May 2014, Pope Francis rode through the streets of Bethlehem in a white open-roofed vehicle, waving to crowds in the birthplace of Christ. That very papal car, now retrofitted into a mobile medical unit, was meant to become a lifeline for the children of Gaza. Today, it sits idle outside the border, blocked by war, diplomacy, and despair. The vehicle, transformed with medical equipment and child-friendly interiors, was a final gesture of solidarity from the late Pope Francis before his death in April 2025. He entrusted it to Caritas Jerusalem with a simple but powerful mission: to reach Gaza’s youngest and most vulnerable–those wounded not only in body, but in spirit. But the borders remain sealed. The Rafah crossing from Egypt is shut tight. Israel’s permissions are scarce and slow. The roads into Gaza are bottle-necks of desperation. For now, the papal ambulance has become a ghost of mercy that cannot yet cross into the inferno. “We are still trying to coordinate with au-thorities,” says Harout Bedrossian of Caritas Jerusalem. “But nothing moves. The frontiers are closed, and hope–however persistent–is thinning.”

The percentage of Brazilians who identi-fy as Catholic fell to 56.75% in 2022, a reduction of 8.4% compared with 2010, according to data from the 2022 demographic census released by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics. Despite the reduction, Catholicism remains by far the largest religion in the country, followed by evangelicalism and Brazilians who identify as having no religion, whose percentage has grown by 1.4% since 2010, accounting for 9.28% of the population. Evangelicals posted growth of 5.2% during the period, comprising 26.9% of the country’s population of just over 203 million people.
The trend of increasing numbers of people without a religious affiliation was discussed by the bishops during a January meeting in Rio de Janeiro. The archbishop of Porto Alegre and president of the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil, Cardinal Jaime Spengler, referred to this population as “dechurched.” Spengler said “there is an urgent need to invest in initiation into Christian life and the valorization of small communities of faith so that Catholicism can grow in Brazil.” Other religions account for 4.01% of the population. Spiritists represent 1.84%, while followers of Umbanda and Candomblé account for 1.05%.

Since last year, there has been a 32% decline in U.S. child abuse allegations against Catholic cler-gy, according to the 2024 annual report of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Se-cretariat of Child and Youth Protection. Overall, “902 allega-tions were reported by 855 victims-survivors of child sexual abuse by clergy,” the report said, compared with 1,308 allegations by 1,254 survivors last year.
Covering July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2024, the annual report is based on a survey of 195 U.S. Catholic dioceses and eparchies, drawn from data collected by the Centre for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University as well as an audit by StoneBridge Business Partners.
The annual reporting stems from the U.S. bishops’ 2002 creation of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, which established a framework and protocols related to allegations of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy.
StoneBridge also pointed out several cases of noncompliance by jurisdictions and entities that are in violation of the articles established in the 2018 revision of the youth protection charter.
“Measuring charter complia-nce allows each diocese/eparchy to assess strengths and weaknesses and identify programmatic areas requiring improvement, which are critical in our mission of prote-cting our children,” the report said. The report restated the Catholic Church’s commitment “to work to ensure the safety of children and vulnerable adults by performing background checks on clergy, employees, and volun-teers, and providing training on how to identify and report abuse signs.”
“For the U.S. Church and as articulated in the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, this commitment tran-slates into a zero-tolerance policy toward abuse,” the USCCB report reads. Abuse allegations have shown a steady decline since 2020, averaging a 30% decrease annua-lly, according to data accumu-lated over the past five years.

The Bishop of Makurdi Wilfred Chikpa Anagbe des-cribed the persistent attacks on Christians in his diocese as “genocide.” Speaking after the latest wave of killings by jihadist Fulani herdsmen in Benue State in late May, in which hundreds of Christians died, Bishop Anagbe said: “No nation watches her citizens slaughtered like animals and says there is nothing to be done. It’s genocide.” In May, at least 100 Christians were killed in separate attacks in Gwer West, part of the diocese, and 5,000 people were displaced. Bishop Anagbe told the ACI Africa agency on 4 June that the killings had forced the closure of 17 parishes since 27 May.
“When we talk about 17 parishes being shut, it means an entire community has been displaced and taken over. They cannot go back,” he said.
A statement from the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria (CBCN) expressed “deep anguish of soul” at “the utterly barbaric massacre of innocent civilians in Benue State.” “These cold-blooded attacks on defenceless communities – where countless have been slaughtered, homes destroyed, and families left in anguish – are an affront to God, a stain on our shared humanity, and a terrifying reminder of the utter breakdown of security in our land,” said the statement, signed by the CBCN president Abp Lucius Iwejuru Ugorji of Owerri.
“There is no justification whatsoever for the continuous bloodletting that has become the daily reality of many in Benue State and across Nigeria. The relentless attacks on innocent and defenceless communities under the watch of civil authorities constitute a grave moral and constitutional failure. This carnage must end.”

We must listen to others, and above all, to the voice of God. That was the idea at the centre of Pope Leo XIV’s homily at Mass in the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran, the Cathedral of the Bishop of Rome, where he celebrated Mass on 25th May Sunday evening. Before heading to the Cathedral of Rome, the Holy Father stopped at Rome’s Capitoline Hill, the seat of the city’s civic and democratic administration, where he was greeted by the mayor of the city, Roberto Gualtieri. The Pope thanked the mayor and the civil authorities present for their warm welcome and expressed his hope that “Rome will always be distinguished by those values of humanity and civilization that draw their lifeblood from the Gospel.”
At the beginning of his homily at the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran, after greeting the cardinals, bishops, the “dear priests,” and the beloved faithful, the Pontiff emphasi-zed that “Rome is the heir to a great history, grounded in the witness of Peter, of Paul, and of countless martyrs, and it has a unique mission, perfectly expressed by what is written on the façade of this cathedral: to be Mater ómnium Ecclesiarum, the Mother of all Churches.”
He then quoted Pope Francis, who often “invited us to reflect on the maternal dimension of the Church and on its defining traits: tenderness, readiness for sacrifice, and that capacity for listening which not only makes it possible to help, but often to anticipate needs and expectations before they are even expressed.” “These are qualities we hope will continue to grow within the People of God everywhere – and here as well, in our great diocesan family: among the faithful, among the pastors, and, above all, within myself,” affirmed Pope Leo XIV.

As Pope Leo XIV begins his pontificate with an emphasis on peace, justice and bridge-building, the Vatican has reaffirmed its “unwavering support for the mission of the United Nations” amid conflict and other urgent challenges facing the global community.
The Vatican’s secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, addressed U.N. representatives at the entity’s New York headquart-ers during a May 19 reception in honour of Pope Leo’s election. The reception was organized by Archbishop Gabriele Caccia, the Holy See’s permanent observer to the United Nations.
The Holy See established diplomatic relations with the U.N. in 1957, representing the Vatican City State as well as the supreme authority of the Catholic Church, including the pope as bishop of Rome and the head of the college of bishops.
Attending the U.N. reception just hours after Leo’s May 18 inauguration Mass at St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican, Parolin noted that “the election of a new pope is an occasion for renewal, not only for Catholics but for all who seek a world of greater justice, solidarity and peace.”
That message echoed one by U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, who said in a May 8 statement that the papal election, along with its “profound spiritual significance … comes at a time of great global challenges.” Paro-lin said the pope, “in his first days as the successor of Peter, has expressed his deep commit-ment to building bridges, under-scoring the need to meet, dialogue and negotiate.”
The cardinal described the U.N.’s mission as creating “a forum where states engage in dialogue, bringing forth the voices of their peoples, and where solutions to humanity’s greatest challenges are forged.”

Pope Leo XIV has appointed Msgr. Renzo Pegoraro as the new President of the Pontifical Academy for Life (PAV), who has served as the Academy’s Chancellor since September 2011. Msgr. Pegoraro, a bioethi-cist with a medical degree, succeeds Arch-bishop Vincenzo Paglia, who turned 80 on April 21.
In an Academy-issued statement, Msgr. Pegoraro expressed, “I thank Pope Leo XIV for appointing me as President of the Pontifical Academy for Life.” ”The work done over these years alongside Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, and previously with Bishop Ignacio Carrasco de Paula,” said the Italian-born priest, “has been both fascinating and stimulating, in line with the operational and thematic directions of the late Pope Francis.” Born in the northern Italian city of Padua on June 4, 1959, Msgr. Pegoraro would later be ordained a priest on June 11, 1989. He was incardinated in the Diocese of Padua.
He earned a degree in Medicine and Surgery in 1985 from the University of Padua, and, in 1990, he received a Licentiate in Moral Theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.
He also has a Postgraduate Diploma in Bioethics from the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart.