ACI Prensa Staff, Nov 10, 2025 / 18:32 pm (CNA).

The Vatican has revealed the names of Pope Leo XIV’s favorite films, including “The Sound of Music” and “It’s a Wonderful Life,” upon announcing the Holy Father’s upcoming meeting with the world of cinema on Saturday, Nov. 15.

In total, the Vatican shared four titles of the “most significant films” for Leo XIV:

‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ (1946) by Frank Capra

The Christmas classic stars James Stewart as George Bailey, a man who has sacrificed his dreams because of his sense of responsibility and generosity but feeling like a failure, he contemplates suicide on Christmas Eve. This prompts the intervention of his guardian angel (Henry Travers), who shows him all the good he has done for many people. 

‘The Sound of Music’ (1965) by Robert Wise

The film tells the story of a postulant at a convent in Austria in 1938.  After discerning out, the postulant (Julie Andrews) is sent to the home of Captain Von Trapp, a widowed retired naval officer (Christopher Plummer) to be the governess of his seven children. After bringing love and music to the Von Trapp family, she eventually marries the captain. As Von Tapp refuses to accept a commission in the Nazi navy, the family is forced to leave Austria in a dramatic escape. 

‘Ordinary People’ (1980) by Robert Redford

The film tells the story of the breakdown of a wealthy Illinois family after the death of one son in an accident and the suicide attempt of the other. It stars Donald Sutherland, Mary Tyler Moore, Judd Hirsch, and Timothy Hutton.

‘Life Is Beautiful’ (1997) by Roberto Benigni

In this film, Benigni — whose father spent two years in a prisoner-of-war camp — plays Guido Orefice, an Italian Jewish bookstore owner who uses his imagination to protect his young son from the horrors of a Nazi concentration camp during World War II.

Nov. 15 meeting with the world of cinema 

The meeting will take place on Saturday, Nov. 15, at 11 a.m. Rome time in the Apostolic Palace of Vatican City, according to a statement from the Dicastery for Culture and Education, in collaboration with the Vatican Museums.

The event follows previous meetings with the world of visual arts (June 2023), comedy (June 2024), and the Jubilee of Artists and the World of Culture in February of this year.

The Vatican statement highlights that Pope Leo XIV “has expressed his desire to deepen the dialogue with the world of cinema, and in particular with actors and directors, exploring the possibilities that artistic creativity offers to the mission of the Church and the promotion of human values.”

Actors and directors the pope will meet

Among those who have already confirmed their participation are the Italian actresses Monica Bellucci, famous for her role as Mary Magdalene in Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ,” and Maria Grazia Cucinotta (“Il Postino” and “The World Is Not Enough.”)

Also joining the Holy Father will be, among others, American actress Cate Blanchett (“The Lord of the Rings,” “The Aviator”), the African-American director Spike Lee, the director Gus Van Sant (“Good Will Hunting,” “Elephant”), the Australian director George Miller, creator of the Mad Max saga, and the Italian Giuseppe Tornatore, director of “Cinema Paradiso,” for which he won the Oscar for best foreign film in 1989.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Nov 10, 2025 / 18:12 pm (CNA).

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined a request to overturn its 2015 decision to legalize same-sex marriage. 

Kim Davis, a Rowan County, Kentucky, clerk from 2015 through 2019, petitioned the Supreme Court in July to reconsider the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges ruling, which legalized same-sex civil marriages nationally.

Davis requested the court also hear her case 10 years later after she made headlines for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. She served multiple days in jail for contempt of court for violating a judicial order to issue the marriage licenses.

Davis was ordered to pay more than $360,000 in damages and legal fees for violating a same-sex couples’ right to marry. After lower courts rejected her claim that the the Constitution’s First Amendment right to free exercise of religion protected her in the case, she appealed to the Supreme Court.

The Trump administration did not weigh in on the case as the Supreme Court considered whether to take up the matter. The Supreme Court made the decision to reject the request on Nov. 10 and has made no comment on the matter. 

The issue with claiming violation to religious freedom is that Davis “was not acting as a private citizen, exercising her right to … religion, she was acting as a public official,” said Thomas Jipping, senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation. 

“The First Amendment applies differently with regard to the actions of public officials than private individuals,” said Jipping in a Nov. 10 interview with “EWTN News Nightly.” Davis “was acting in her official capacity as a county clerk, and that’s a very different legal question.” 

Jipping said Davis’ situation was not the “right case” to reach the Supreme Court and reverse Obergefell v. Hodges because it was not a case in which someone challenged a state legislature’s law in conflict with the precedent.

Mary Rice Hasson, Kate O’Beirne senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, told CNA she agreed the case was not the right vehicle to reconsider the Obergefell decision.

“As Catholics, our energies will be better spent explaining and promoting the truth about marriage and sexuality to our children and fellow Catholics rather than hoping for a reversal of Obergefell,” Hasson said.

Many American Catholics support the legalization of same-sex civil marriages at about the same rate as the broader population. According to a 2024 Pew poll, about 70% of self-identified Catholics said they support same-sex marriage, which was slightly higher than the population as a whole.

Hasson said: “It’s a scandal that 70% of self-described Catholics support so-called same-sex ‘marriage.’”

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches: “The vocation to marriage is written in the very nature of man and woman as they came from the hand of the Creator.”

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Nov 10, 2025 / 17:52 pm (CNA).

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) will select its president and vice president Nov. 11 during the Fall Plenary Assembly in Baltimore.

Bishops will choose both positions from a slate of 10 candidates nominated by their fellow bishops. The incumbent president and vice president — Archbishop Timothy Broglio and Archbishop William Lori — will step down from their roles as their three-year terms expire.

To be elected, the bishop must receive a majority of the voting bishops. After the president is selected from the 10-person slate, the vice president will be chosen from the nine remaining candidates. Candidates for president include:

Archbishop Paul S. Coakley, Archdiocese of Oklahoma City

Archbishop Paul Coakley already holds a leadership role in the USCCB, serving as the secretary.

Although the USCCB vice president is usually the front-runner, the 74-year-old Lori is ineligible for the role because he reaches retirement age next year. This was also the case for the vice president in the previous election in 2022, when the bishops chose then-Secretary Broglio. 

Coakley is 70 years old and has served in his archdiocese for nearly 15 years. He has been a bishop since 2004. He has a licentiate in sacred theology. 

The archbishop has defended a culture of life, speaking out against both abortion and the death penalty. In 2023, he wrote a pastoral letter in which he expressed concerns with the rise in gender dysphoria and the promotion of gender ideology. In February of this year, he criticized President Donald Trump’s mass deportation efforts and also said countries have a right to protect their borders.

Bishop Robert E. Barron, Diocese of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota

Bishop Robert Barron may be the most well-known contender, particularly due to his media presence and Word on Fire ministry.

Barron chairs the USCCB’s Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life, and Youth. He also serves on Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission. He has a master’s degree in philosophy and a licentiate in sacred theology.

Much of Barron’s career has focused on evangelizing the public and helping catechize Catholics, including youth. He has condemned the growing secularism and relativism in modern society and has called for Christianity to be more present in the public square. He has criticized gender ideology and abortion.

Bishop Daniel E. Flores, Diocese of Brownsville, Texas

Bishop Daniel Flores, former president of the USCCB Committee on Doctrine, is the only southern-border bishop in contention for the role of president, serving the southernmost diocese in Texas.

Flores, who is 64 years old, holds a doctorate in sacred theology and is a former theology professor. He has been a bishop since 2006. He was one of 12 bishops to serve on the Ordinary Council of the General Secretariat of the Synod on Synodality and is a strong promoter of synodality in the Church. 

In 2017, Flores said support for mass deportations is “formal cooperation with an intrinsic evil,” similar to driving someone to an abortion clinic. He has expressed concern about polarization in the Church and urged “civil conversation … to seek what is good and make the priority how to achieve it and how to avoid what is evil.”

Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades, Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Indiana

Bishop Kevin Rhoades is the chair of the USCCB Committee on Religious Liberty and serves on an advisory board for Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission. He has been outspoken on religious freedom issues and opposition to abortion.

Rhoades, who is 67 years old, became a bishop in 2004. He holds a licentiate in sacred theology and a licentiate in canon law. 

Rhoades has been critical of government policies that impose mandates related to abortion and contraception on religious organizations and businesses. In 2024, he said: “No employer should be forced to participate in an employee’s decision to end the life of their child.”

This year, his committee laid out concerns about bills that promote gender ideology which could threaten religious liberty in its annual report. It also expressed concerns about immigration policies when religious organizations, such as Annunciation House, are put in the crosshairs.

Archbishop Alexander K. Sample, Archdiocese of Portland, Oregon

Archbishop Alexander Sample, who has defended pro-life values and the Traditional Latin Mass, has served as a bishop since 2013. 

The archbishop, who is 65 years old, has a licentiate in canon law. 

Sample has been a staunch opponent of abortion and last year criticized Oregon’s governor for creating an “appreciation day” for abortionists. He criticized “the idea that those who make a living ending innocent, unborn life should be publicly honored. He has strongly criticized gender ideology as well. 

The archbishop has celebrated the Traditional Latin Mass and has sought to follow the Vatican guidelines on those celebrations without causing major disruptions to Latin Mass communities. He has praised efforts to revive reverence and focus on the Eucharist. 

Archbishop Nelson J. Pérez, Archdiocese of Philadelphia

Archbishop Nelson Pérez, who chairs the board of Catholic Relief Services, has sought to bring back lapsed Catholics, which includes outreach efforts to the youth and Latinos. 

Pérez is 64 years old and became a bishop in 2012. 

The archbishop this year announced a 10-year plan to bring lapsed Catholics back to Mass, which includes the creation of “missionary hubs” throughout the archdiocese. The hubs are meant to “address the distinct needs and priorities of the people living within the neighborhoods of that parish and beyond,” he said. 

Pérez has also called for solidarity with immigrants and expressed concerns about Trump’s mass deportation efforts. He strongly promotes pro-life values and criticizes abortion.

Bishop David J. Malloy, Diocese of Rockford

Bishop David Malloy, former chair of the Committee on International Justice and Peace, has promoted peace in international affairs and has been critical of abortion and euthanasia.

Malloy, who is 69 years old, became a bishop in 2012 and holds a licentiate in canon law and a doctorate in theology. 

The bishop has condemned the creation of and continued threat of nuclear weapons and urged the U.S. government to promote dialogue and peace amid conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza. He has also expressed concerns about climate change and pollution. 

Malloy has consistently opposed abortion and praised the U.S. Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. He has vocally criticized legislative efforts to legalize euthanasia in Illinois.

Archbishop Richard G. Henning, Archdiocese of Boston

Archbishop Richard Henning, who serves on the Subcommittee on Hispanic Affairs in the USCCB Committee on Cultural Diversity in the Church, has promoted Eucharistic revival, criticized abortion, and called for Catholics to show solidarity with migrants.

Henning, who is 61 years old, became a bishop in 2018. He holds a licentiate in sacred theology and a doctorate in theology.

The archbishop celebrated a Mass at the National Eucharistic Congress last year and said the sense of unity with the Lord and with each other has been most powerful.

He has expressed concern about the increase in immigration enforcement and reiterated the USCCB’s call to show solidarity with migrants. In 2023, he urged Catholics to pray for the defense of unborn lives amid legislative efforts to support taxpayer funded abortion.

Archbishop Edward J. Weisenburger, Archdiocese of Detroit

Archbishop Edward Weisenburger, who has been a bishop since 2012, is vocal in support for migrants, has expressed concerns about climate change, and has restricted celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass.

Weisenburger, who is 64 years old, holds a licentiate in canon law. 

The archbishop took part in a pro-migrant march this year that concluded at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement office. He authored an op-ed in America Magazine in which he criticized Trump’s plan for mass deportations and called for “a new approach to immigration policy must begin by recognizing the humanity of the immigrant.”

Weisenburger strongly promoted Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’ and wrote in an op-ed for the Arizona Daily Star: “We must not resign ourselves to just surviving a climate-disrupted world. We can and must stabilize the climate. But doing so will require the commitment of individuals as well as entire populations.

Archbishop Charles C. Thompson, Archdiocese of Indianapolis

Archbishop Charles Thompson, chairman of the USCCB Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis, has spoken out against same-sex civil marriage, gender ideology and abortion, and supports the Eucharistic revival.

Thompson, who is 64 years old, was made a bishop in 2011. He holds a licentiate in canon law. 

The archbishop in 2019 stripped a Jesuit Catholic school of the label “Catholic” after it defied his order to not renew a contract for a teacher who was in a same-sex civil marriage. He praised the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and urged governments to pass laws to protect unborn life.

Thompson has emphasized the importance of reverence and adoration for the Eucharist, saying “it’s so important for us to understand that the Eucharist is the body and blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ.”

ACI Prensa Staff, Nov 10, 2025 / 17:26 pm (CNA).

The Vatican has officially released the documentary “Leo from Chicago” about the life of Pope Leo XIV in the United States, coinciding with the sixth month of the pontificate of the first American and Peruvian pope in the history of the Catholic Church.

The documentary premiered Nov. 10 at 4 p.m. Rome time and was screened at the Vatican Film Library for journalists accredited to the Holy See Press Office. At 6 p.m. Rome time it was published on the Vatican News YouTube channels in English, Italian, and Spanish, according to a statement from the Dicastery for Communication.

The documentary was produced by the Dicastery for Communication in collaboration with the Archdiocese of Chicago and the Apostolado El Sembrador Nueva Evangelización (The Sower New Evangelization Apostolate.)

The project was led by journalists Deborah Castellano Lubov, Salvatore Cernuzio, and Felipe Herrera-Espaliat, with editing by Jaime Vizcaíno Haro. It shows various locations, including the Dolton neighborhood in suburban Chicago where the pope lived with his family, and features the memories and stories of the Holy Father’s brothers, Louis Martin and John Prevost.

Also featured are the offices, schools, and parishes run by the Augustinians, the Catholic Theological Union study center, and places frequented by Robert Prevost, such as Aurelio’s Pizza and Rate Field, the White Sox baseball stadium.

The overview includes scenes from Villanova University near Philadelphia and Port Charlotte, Florida, where the pope’s older brother lives.

The documentary features some 30 testimonies from people who knew Leo XIV in his childhood and youth; for example, when he marched in Washington, D.C., to support the pro-life cause. 

“Leo from Chicago” is the documentary that follows “Leo from Peru,” released in June, about the pope’s years in the South American country.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

CNA Staff, Nov 10, 2025 / 16:36 pm (CNA).

Paul Badde, author of many well-known books such as “Benedict Up Close,” “The Face of God,” and “The True Icon,” died early Monday morning at the age of 77 after a long illness. Badde was also a veteran contributor to EWTN and CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner.

Badde was born on March 10, 1948, in Schaag, Germany, a small village on the Lower Rhine. He studied philosophy and sociology in Freiburg as well as art history, history, and political science in Frankfurt. Before embarking on a journalistic career, Badde worked as a teacher for several years.

As a journalist, he was known for his work at the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and later at Die Welt. Badde served for many years as a Jerusalem correspondent before moving to Rome. He was also one of the founding editors of Vatican Magazine.

As reported by Die Tagespost, Badde died in his beloved Manoppello in the Italian Abruzzo region. Paul and his wife, Ellen, had five children.

This story was first published by CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

Vatican City, Nov 10, 2025 / 16:06 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV warned Monday that artificial intelligence could exacerbate “antihuman ideologies” in medicine as Catholic doctors and moral theologians raise alarms about the future of AI in health care.

In a message on Nov. 10 to an international congress on “Artificial Intelligence and Medicine: The Challenge of Human Dignity,” hosted by the Pontifical Academy for Life, the pope said that ensuring “true progress” in medicine depends on keeping the dignity of every human at the forefront.

“It is easy to recognize the destructive potential of technology and even medical research when they are placed at the service of antihuman ideologies,” Leo XIV said.

Leo added that those responsible for integrating AI into medicine must remember that “health care professionals have the vocation and responsibility to be guardians and servants of human life, especially in its most vulnerable stages.”

“Indeed, the greater the fragility of human life, the greater the nobility required of those entrusted with its care,” he said.

The pope’s message came a day after another of his statements on the ethics of AI led to controversy on the social media platform X. Tech billionaire Marc Andreessen posted a mocking reference to Leo’s call on the AI industry “to develop systems that reflect justice, solidarity, and a genuine reverence for life.” After a pileup of critical replies, Andreessen apparently deleted his own post.

Pro-life concerns over AI billing in medical insurance  

The pope’s remarks on Monday come amid growing concern among Catholic doctors about how artificial intelligence could shape access to care and respect for human dignity in health care systems worldwide.

Dr. Kathleen Berchelmann, a pediatrician and founder of My Catholic Doctor, a telehealth network that connects families seeking Catholic care with like-minded providers, told CNA she is alarmed by how insurance companies are deploying AI in the U.S.

She said AI-driven billing systems are “further pushing pro-life health care providers out of the insurance market to the self-pay market, reducing access to pro-life health care in America.”

“What I see in AI and health care is a technology arms race,” Berchelmann said. “And unfortunately, the people with the big money have higher tech, and … that’s the insurance companies. That’s United Health Care, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, Elevance Health, Aetna, Cigna. … These are the companies that are putting billions into utilization management, which means denials.”

On Oct. 1, Aetna and Cigna implemented AI-automated payments nationwide, a move that has led to what critics call “downcoding,” where insurers automatically downgrade doctors’ claims to lower reimbursement levels without reviewing visit details.

“In particular, in pro-life health care, we’re seeing automatic downcoding because restorative reproductive medicine, which is health care that finds root cause of infertility and treats the root cause, takes more time than a brief workup and a referral to IVF,” Berchelmann said.

“That extended time requires a higher coding. But if I do a real quick workup, I can build a lower code for that. So the predictive AI doesn’t recognize that I’m doing a better job in finding root cause of disease,” she added.

Berchelmann said she sees “tremendous potential for AI in terms of diagnostic capacity and clinical use” and hopes predictive models will demonstrate that “pro-life health care is so much cheaper than IVF.” But for now, she said, “insurance companies, employers paying for health care, and pharmaceutical companies with insurance, are all heavily using AI to not pay for your care.” 

In his message, Pope Leo acknowledged the influence of economic interests in health care and technology. 

“Given the vast economic interests often at stake in the fields of medicine and technology, and the subsequent fight for control, it is essential to promote a broad collaboration among all those working in health care and politics that extends well beyond national borders,” the pope said.  

AI not a substitute for ‘human encounter’ in medicine 

Pope Leo underlined that “technological devices must never detract from the personal relationship between patients and health care providers.”

“If AI is to serve human dignity and the effective provision of health care, we must ensure that it truly enhances both interpersonal relationships and the care provided,” he said.

Leo described the new technological advancements brought by AI as “more pervasive” than those brought by the industrial revolution, noting their potential to alter “our understanding of situations and how we perceive ourselves and others.”

“We currently interact with machines as if they were interlocutors, and thus become almost an extension of them,” he said. “In this sense, we not only run the risk of losing sight of the faces of the people around us but of forgetting how to recognize and cherish all that is truly human.” 

The three-day Vatican conference on AI and medicine, running Nov. 10–12, is one of several in recent months addressing the ethics of AI — an issue Pope Leo XIV has signaled will be a priority in his pontificate.

At the Builders AI Forum in Rome last week, which addressed the challenge of AI for Catholics and Catholic institutions in a variety of fields, medical school professors, health care company executives, insurance company directors, medical chaplains, and entrepreneurs in the field came together to discuss and debate the future of AI in Catholic health care. 

Louis Kim, the former vice president of personal systems and AI at HP, shared that the consensus among these professionals at the end of the forum was that “AI may assist but must never substitute for human encounter [in Catholic health care] and must remain clearly identifiable as non-human so that the pastoral and sacramental integrity of care is preserved.” 

Daniel J. Daly, executive director of the Center for Theology and Ethics in Catholic Health and an associate professor of moral theology at Boston College, told CNA he is concerned that if AI models used in Catholic hospitals are only trained to maximize “efficiency and profit” it could lead to “a massive failure for Catholic health care.” 

“What I worry about is that what could happen in health care is that AI replaces that embodied witness to the kingdom of God,” Daly said. “That can never happen in Catholic health care, because Catholic health care is not just about medicine. It’s also about Jesus Christ and witnessing to his healing ministry that we see in the Scripture.” 

“I think the most important thing is that whatever the AI does, that it frees us to do the works of mercy, it doesn’t free us from the works of mercy,” he added. “That is, it doesn’t replace the embodied care and ministerial care that we provide through medicine.” 

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Nov 10, 2025 / 13:25 pm (CNA).

Throughout the last two millennia, the Catholic Church has only granted the title “doctor of the Church” to 38 saints, one of whom we celebrate today on Nov. 10: St. Leo the Great, the 45th bishop of Rome. 

Pope Leo I, who was the first pope to be remembered posthumously as “the great,” began his papacy in 440 and served until his death in 461. During his pontificate, he worked to clarify doctrines related to Christ’s human and divine natures.

The pontiff was a “pope-theologian, but he’s also known as a remarkable bishop,” Thomas Clemmons, a professor of Church history at The Catholic University of America, told CNA, adding that “theologian popes are rare.”

St. Leo’s papacy began nine years after the Council of Ephesus, which condemned Nestorius and the heresy of Nestorianism, leading many of Nestorius’ followers to schism. The heresy rejected the close union of Christ’s human and divine natures and rejected the Marian title of “Theotokos,” or God-bearer, claiming that Mary only gave birth to Christ’s human nature.

Rising out of the Nestorian schism were more Christological conflicts over the relationship between Christ’s humanity and divinity. Eutyches, an opponent of Nestorius, went too far in the opposite direction, claiming that Christ’s human and divine natures were fused into one single nature. His human nature, Eutyches claimed, was “dissolved like a drop of honey in the sea.”

This heretical understanding, according to Clemmons, turned Christ into a “third thing” or a “kind of monster” rather than the Catholic understanding of Christ as “one Person” with “complete and true humanity and complete and true divinity.”

To combat Eutyches’ error, Pope Leo wrote a letter to Flavian I, the archbishop of Constantinople, which clarified the hypostatic union of Christ’s distinct human nature and distinct divine nature. The letter, which became known as “Leo’s Tome,” is the pontiff’s most famous work and set the stage for defining Christological doctrines at the Council of Chalcedon in 451. 

“Both natures retain their own proper character without loss: and as the form of God did not do away with the form of a slave, so the form of a slave did not impair the form of God,” Pope Leo wrote in the letter. 

“From the mother of the Lord was received nature, not faultiness: nor in the Lord Jesus Christ, born of the Virgin’s womb, does the wonderfulness of his birth make his nature unlike ours,” the letter continued. “For he who is true God is also true man: and in this union there is no lie, since the humility of manhood and the loftiness of the Godhead both meet there.”

In emphasizing the fullness of Christ’s human nature in the letter, Leo cites the genealogy of Christ listed in the Scripture, along with his human experiences, particularly suffering and death on the cross: “Let [Eutyches] not disbelieve [Christ is a] man with a body like ours, since he acknowledges [Christ] to have been able to suffer: seeing that the denial of his true flesh is also the denial of his bodily suffering.”

Leo emphasized the words of the Creed when emphasizing the fullness of Christ’s divine nature, stating: “Not only is God believed to be both Almighty and the Father, but the Son is shown to be co-eternal with him, differing in nothing from the Father because he is God from God, Almighty from Almighty, and being born from the Eternal One is co-eternal with him.” 

The pontiff bolstered his argument with citations from Scripture that point to the fullness of Christ’s divine nature and the fullness of his human nature. 

“To be hungry and thirsty, to be weary, and to sleep, is clearly human,” Leo said. “But to satisfy 5,000 men with five loaves, and to bestow on the woman of Samaria living water, droughts of which can secure the drinker from thirsting any more, to walk upon the surface of the sea with feet that do not sink, and to quell the risings of the waves by rebuking the winds, is, without any doubt, divine.”

Clemmons praised “Leo’s Tome” as a “simple and clear text” that is “very readable and very instructional now,” even more than 1,500 years later. 

At the time, however, the letter was met with hostility from supporters of Eutyches’ position in Constantinople: “[It was] sent there, read aloud, and they rejected it,” Clemmons said. Emperor Theodosius II convened the faux Second Council of Ephesus in 449, which rejected St. Leo’s letter and defended Eutyches. The supporters of Eutyches brutally assaulted Archbishop Flavian I for defending St. Leo’s position, deposed him, and sent him into exile. He died from his injuries.

St. Leo referred to the council as the “Latrocinium,” the “robber council,” and in 451 the Church convoked the Council of Chalcedon, which defined clearly the hypostatic union of Christ’s human and divine natures and rejected the Second Council of Ephesus.

Chalcedon Council documents cite Leo’s letter and affirm his teachings on the two natures of Christ, stating that Christ “must be confessed to be in two natures, unconfusedly, immutably, indivisibly, inseparably [united] … without the distinction of natures being taken away by such union.”

When speaking to a general audience in 2008, Pope Benedict XVI referred to St. Leo the Great as one of the greatest popes in the history of the Church.

“As the nickname soon attributed to him by tradition suggests, he was truly one of the greatest pontiffs to have honored the Roman See and made a very important contribution to strengthening its authority and prestige,” Benedict said.

This story was first published on Nov. 10, 2023, and has been updated.

ACI Prensa Staff, Nov 10, 2025 / 12:08 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV has appointed a longtime confrere and friend, Nigerian priest Edward Daniang Daleng, OSA, as vice regent of the Prefecture of the Papal Household, the second-highest position in the Vatican office that organizes audiences with the pope. 

The prefecture also takes care of the preparations related to papal ceremonies, the spiritual exercises of the Holy Father, and gatherings of the College of Cardinals and the Roman Curia. Furthermore, it handles the necessary arrangements whenever the Holy Father leaves the Apostolic Palace to visit places within Rome or Italy.

Daniang has been a general councilor and, most recently, procurator general of the Order of St. Augustine — Pope Leo’s religious order. As procurator general, the priest was responsible for preparing and carrying out the order’s business with the Holy See.

Born on April 4, 1977, in Yitla’ar, Kwalla, Plateau state, in Nigeria, Daniang made his first profession in the Order of St. Augustine on Nov. 9, 2001, and his solemn vows on Nov. 13, 2004, at the age of 47.

He was ordained a priest on Sept. 10, 2005, and was awarded a doctorate in moral theology from the Pontifical Alphonsian Academy in Rome in 2012, with a thesis on “Respect for the Dignity and Care of Patients with Incurable and Terminal Illnesses.”

Daniang first met Pope Leo in 2001, when Father Robert Prevost, then prior general of the Augustinians, visited Nigeria. After moving to Rome in 2002, Daniang got to know Prevost even better.

He told Valentina Di Donato of EWTN News in August that he and Prevost have had many occasions to meet and speak over the ensuing decades.

“Something that struck me was his simplicity, his humility,” Daniang said. “That is how he was, how he is.”

Speaking to Vatican News after the election of Pope Leo XIV, Daniang also said that “Africa is in [Leo’s] heart” and that when he was prior general of the Augustinians, then-Father Prevost visited Nigeria at least 10 times.

“To understand how much my country mattered to him,” the priest continued, “just remember that after becoming prior general on his 46th birthday, Sept. 14, he was already with us in Nigeria by November.”

Valentina Di Donato, a producer in the Vatican Bureau of EWTN News, contributed to this report.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

All parishioners are invited to participate in a cemetery visit, this Saturday, November 15th, 11 a.m. at Mother of God Cemetery, Covington , to pray for the dear departed and the Holy Souls in Purgatory.  We will gather at the...

Colombo, Sri Lanka, Nov 10, 2025 / 09:39 am (CNA).

A top Vatican diplomat has raised the possibility of a papal visit to Sri Lanka as the two nations marked 50 years of diplomatic relations this month, a milestone reached as the island nation emerges from years of political turmoil and economic crisis.

Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, the Vatican’s secretary for relations with states and international organizations, visited Sri Lanka Nov. 3–8 to commemorate the diplomatic ties established Sept. 6, 1975. During meetings with President Anura Kumara Dissanayake and other key officials, Gallagher said Pope Leo XIV may consider visiting the country in recognition of its progress toward peace and stability.

The visit came at a pivotal moment for Sri Lanka, which is rebuilding after a devastating civil war that ended in 2009 and a severe economic collapse in 2022 that forced the president’s resignation. The country also saw Easter Sunday terrorist attacks in 2019 that killed 269 people at Catholic churches and hotels.

On Nov. 4, Gallagher met Dissanayake at the Presidential Secretariat. During the meeting, the president briefed the archbishop on the country’s progress under his administration, according to the President’s Media Division.

‘A blessing for Sri Lanka’

Dissanayake thanked the archbishop for his visit, calling it “a blessing for Sri Lanka.”

The president lauded the Vatican’s contributions to Sri Lanka’s education sector and its humanitarian assistance following the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

Gallagher responded that Pope Leo XIV is impressed with Sri Lanka’s progress in promoting peace and unity among religious and ethnic groups. He added that the pope may consider visiting Sri Lanka in the future, given the Vatican’s ties with the country and its progress on many fronts.

In January 2015, Pope Francis visited Sri Lanka amid the aftermath of the nation’s civil war. During that visit, Francis canonized Joseph Vaz (1651–1711), known as the apostle of Sri Lanka.

Gallagher also praised Dissanayake’s leadership in restoring political and economic stability. He said the Vatican supports Sri Lanka’s ongoing efforts to improve ethnic harmony, interfaith understanding, and financial recovery.

The archbishop also conveyed that Pope Leo XIV and the Vatican acknowledge and appreciate Sri Lanka’s progress in championing peace and unity among ethnic and religious communities.

Reaffirming partnership

During a joint news conference on Nov. 4, Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath and Gallagher reaffirmed their enduring bilateral relations.

In his remarks, Herath recalled the significant role that the Catholic Church plays in Sri Lanka’s religious and social fabric, particularly in nation-building and reconciliation efforts following the country’s decades-long civil war.

“As we mark this occasion, we reflect with pride on our multifaceted engagement in areas such as education, health care, interfaith dialogue, and humanitarian cooperation,” he said.

“This 50-year anniversary is a testament to a long tradition of dialogue and collaboration,” Gallagher stated in response. “With the intention of making the world a more equitable and peaceful place, we reached a consensus on the significance of maintaining our shared path, enhancing our collaboration on a global and regional scale, and continuing to move forward in the same direction.”

Both sides expressed optimism about the future of relations between Sri Lanka and the Holy See, which are founded on mutual respect and a shared vision for peace and development.

Civil War legacy

Sri Lanka’s civil war lasted from 1983 to 2009, claiming tens of thousands of lives. The conflict ended in 2009 when government forces defeated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a separatist group founded in 1976 to fight for Tamil rights. The conflict had its roots in long-standing ethnic tensions between the majority Sinhalese and the minority Tamil populations.

From 2019 to 2024, Sri Lanka also faced severe political and economic crises, including the 2022 collapse that led to the resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

Buddhism is practiced by approximately 70% of Sri Lanka’s estimated 22 million people, while 12.6% are Hindu, 9% are Muslim, and 7% are Christian.

Commemorative events

The Vatican diplomat participated in a commemorative ceremony in Colombo, attended by Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith of Colombo, along with other Sri Lankan dignitaries and Church officials.

The cardinal expressed joy at the joint celebration of bilateral ties, highlighting shared endeavors of friendship, collaboration, and partnership.

On Nov. 4, Ranjith accompanied Gallagher to St. Anthony’s Shrine in Colombo, one of two Catholic churches targeted by suicide bombers on Easter Sunday 2019. The attacks, carried out by a local Islamic extremist group, killed up to 269 people and injured approximately 500.

Hopes for continued partnership

“His [Gallagher’s] visit marks the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Sri Lanka and the Holy See — a milestone of friendship, mutual respect, and shared values,” said Arun Hemachandra, deputy minister of foreign affairs and foreign employment.

“This golden jubilee celebration is a moment of reflection on our enduring partnership with the Vatican, grounded in peace, compassion, and the service of humanity,” he added.

Father Cyril Gamini Fernando, spokesperson for the Archdiocese of Colombo, described Gallagher’s visit as important and timely.

“Gallagher’s presence in the country was an excellent occasion to acknowledge the Catholic Church and the Vatican’s efforts to support Sri Lanka in its common good and development efforts,” he said.

Michael Fernando, a Catholic and social worker based in Colombo, told CNA that the golden jubilee offers hope for further collaboration grounded in shared values.

“Even if Christians are a minority in Sri Lanka, the government values their contribution and the service they render to people,” he said. “The five decades of partnership between the Vatican and Sri Lanka are a joyous occasion to sustain in the future for the welfare of all.”