#vatican-appointments

#vatican-appointments

The law says consent cannot truly be given in those circumstances due to the power imbalance, and it also applies to a professor and a student, or a boss and an employee, or a therapist and a client.

On Feb. 28, 2013, Benedict XVI became the first pope in 600 years to resign, ending an eight-year pontificate. (Benedict was succeeded the following month by Pope Francis.)

The conference's opposition to stripping folks of birthright citizenship "is motivated by their firmly held belief that each person is endowed by God with an inherent dignity that confers certain universal, inviolable, and inalienable rights."

Wilmer, on the other hand, speaks multiple languages. Among other places, he studied in Paris and Rome. As a young priest, he worked as a teacher for several months in Canada and for a year in the Bronx borough of New York City. In September 2018, after being consecrated as bishop at Hildesheim Cathedral, he delivered a speech in which he spoke in six languages: German, Spanish, English, French, Italian and Low German.

Catch up quick: President Trump created the White House Faith Office by executive order on Feb. 7, 2025, placing it within the Domestic Policy Council and moving it into the White House complex. The move was designed to signal a "direct line" between people of faith and the executive branch. Unlike the versions under prior administrations, which were often situated in agencies or outside the immediate West Wing orbit, this office is central to Trump's "religious freedom" agenda.

"No trip to the U.S. is expected in 2026," Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said.

I have told the clergy of the Episcopal diocese of New Hampshire that we may be entering into that same witness, Hirschfeld said. And I've asked them to get their affairs in order, to make sure they have their wills written, because it may be that now is no longer the time for statements, but for us with our bodies, to stand between the powers of this world and the most vulnerable.

ROME -- Pope Leo XIV met with Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado in a private audience at the Vatican on Monday. The meeting, which hadn't been previously included in the list of Leo's planned appointments, was later listed by the Vatican in its daily bulletin, without adding details. Machado is touring Europe and the United States after she reemerged in December after 11 months in hiding to accept her Nobel Peace Prize in Norway.

There are some things that defy explanation. When the loathsome House Speaker Mike Johnson recently took it upon himself to explain the Bible to Pope Leo XIV, the Bishop of Rome, the spiritual leader of over a billion Catholics, and a person who has truly earned his Jesus stripes, it just confirmed what a sanctimonious idiot Johnson is. This bizarre Bible babble from one of the most unholy people on Earth went beyond being absurd because the very idea that the narcissistic Johnson really thought he knew more about the Bible than the humble Leo is ... well, inexplicable.

Cardinal Blase Cupich, 76, is one of the leading voices of the progressive sector of the U.S. Catholic Church at a time when the conservative arm, emboldened by the Donald Trump administration, is rapidly gaining ground in a heavily politicized country. Except he doesn't see himself in that way, nor the church. I always try to be faithful to what the doctrine of the Church is on social issues, and that is my guide.