NATION/WORLD

Pope Leo XIV shared his first encyclical on May 15, 2026, entitled Magnifica Humanitas (The Magnificence of the Human Person). Bishop Peter Dai Bui helps us understand how this letter fits into the writings of previous popes — Pope Leo XIII, Pope St. John XXIII, Pope St. Paul VI and Pope St. John Paul II — each of whom responded to the challenges of his times with one or more encyclicals. Today, Pope Leo XIV does the same for us.

I write to you as a pastor and as a fellow disciple of Jesus Christ, one who shares your concern for the moral challenges of our time. As Archbishop of Santa Fe, I have prayed deeply about the continued existence of nuclear weapons and what our faith requires of us in response. I am convinced that this issue is not peripheral to our Catholic life—it goes to the very heart of who we are as a people committed to the Gospel of peace. The Church teaches, and has always taught, that every human person is created in the image and likeness of God (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church [CCC], 1700). From this foundational truth flows the absolute dignity of human life. Nuclear weapons, by their very nature, stand in direct contradiction to this dignity. Their destructive force is indiscriminate, incapable of distinguishing between combatant and noncombatant. As the Catechism reminds us, “every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities… is a crime against God and man” (CCC, 2314). Nuclear weapons represent the extreme embodiment of this moral disorder.

(OSV News) — A new initiative by the University of Mary and the Diocese of Phoenix promises to respond to today’s rising mental health challenges by forming mental health professionals who are clinically trained and rooted in the Catholic teaching on human dignity. “The idea of mental health ministry is to reach out to those who may be struggling with mental health or those who have lost loved ones through suicide — and let them know that they’re loved and that they belong in the life of the Church,” Bishop John P. Dolan of Phoenix, who has lost four family members to suicide, told OSV News.

On a sleepless night in Nairobi, Kenya, Lazmhy Gallo Hernandez suddenly had an idea about what she could do when she returned to her home parish, St. Charles Borromeo in Peoria, Ariz.  Gallo Hernandez decided to develop programming called “Glimpses of Heaven” for her parish’s teen group. “When we were in Kenya, oftentimes participants were saying this is what heaven would look like,” she shared. “It came to me randomly. I was being woken up by the sheep outside and it came to me.” 

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Leo XIV urged U.S. high school students to be "intentional" with their screen time, their prayer time and their involvement in a local parish. "One of my own personal heroes, one of my favorite saints, is St. Augustine of Hippo," the pope told 16,000 young Catholics meeting in Indianapolis. "He searched everywhere for happiness, but nothing satisfied him until he opened his heart to God. That is why he wrote, 'You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.' "With a livestream connection, Pope Leo spoke for close to an hour Nov. 21 with participants at the National Catholic Youth Conference meeting at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.

St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City spilled over with thousands of spectators on Sunday, Sept. 7 as Pope Leo XIV canonized two young men, St. Pier Giorgio Frassati and St. Carlo Acutis — the first canonization of Pope Leo’s pontificate. Local Catholic, Christine Minch of Mesa, Ariz., was in Rome during the canonization. She was part of the crowd that waited in line for several hours before the doors opened in the early morning, and she found seats in the center third row, where she experienced the two-hour Mass.

As the world mourns the mass shooting at Annunciation Church in Minneapolis, Domonic Salce, superintendent of Catholic Schools for the Diocese of Phoenix, offers...

This week, something historic is unfolding for the Diocese of Phoenix.   Eight young adults and four mentors have embarked on a two-week trip to Nairobi, Kenya, as the inaugural participants of Engage Your Equal (E.Y.E.), a new diocesan initiative created by Bishop John Dolan to foster global solidarity, faith-based leadership and cross-cultural dialogue — all along equipping young adults to embody the universality of the Catholic Church.   Catch up on part one of the coverage here.  

Fr. John Nahrgang and Fr. Fernando Camou, two priests from the Diocese of Phoenix, were among the thousands packed into St. Peter’s Square when the historic selection of Cardinal Robert Prevost, an American from Chicago who had lived and served in Peru for a number of years before moving to Rome, was announced May 8.

The first U.S.-born cardinal, Robert Francis Prevost, has been named the Roman pontiff on Thursday, taking the name Leo XIV.   Following the opening Mass (The Mass for the Election of the Roman Pontiff) on Wednesday, 133 cardinals entered the Sistine Chapel later that day to begin the conclave. To elect a new pope, a two-thirds majority was required, meaning at least 89 votes were needed out of 133 electors. On Thursday afternoon in Rome, the white smoke indicated the new pope had been selected.