Rubio: ‘There’s a lot to talk about’ with Pope Leo XIV
Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that he has “a lot to talk about” with Pope Leo XIV in their upcoming meeting but that his trip to the Vatican on Thursday is not related to President Donald Trump’s criticisms of the Holy Father.
Rubio was asked by a reporter during a news conference on May 5 whether the May 7 meeting is an attempt to “smooth things over” with Leo after Trump called him “weak on crime” and “weak on nuclear weapons” and falsely accused him of wanting Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon.
The secretary said this is not the reason for the meeting, but instead it is “a trip we had planned from before.” He acknowledged “we had some stuff that happened” but said there is “a lot to talk about with the Vatican.”
“The pope just returned from a trip to Africa, where the Church is growing very vibrantly, and we have shared concerns about religious freedom in different parts of the world,” Rubio said. “We’d love to talk to them about that.”
Rubio added that the U.S. gave $6 million of humanitarian aid to Cuba, which was distributed by the Church, and “we’d like to do more” with that partnership.
“We’re willing to give more humanitarian aid to Cuba, by the way, distributed through the Church, but the Cuban regime has to allow us to do it,” he said.
A reporter also asked Rubio about Trump’s more recent comment about Leo on May 4. On “The Hugh Hewitt Show,” the president again accused Leo of holding the view that “it’s OK for Iran to have a nuclear weapon” and added: “I think he’s endangering a lot of Catholics and a lot of people.”
In response, Rubio said the president’s position is that “Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon because they would use it against places that have a lot of Catholics, including Christians and others for that matter.”
“[Trump] doesn’t understand why anybody — leave aside the pope — the president, and I for that matter, I think most people, I cannot understand why anyone would think that it’s a good idea for Iran to ever have a nuclear weapon,” Rubio said.
Although Leo has urged diplomacy in Iran as opposed to war, the Holy Father has not said he supports Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon. Rather, the pope has spoken out strongly against nuclear proliferation in the Middle East.
Rubio accused Iran of “holding the whole world hostage” by refusing to let ships pass through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran threatened to block all ships from passing through the strait without express permission from its government following the American and Israeli attack. The U.S. is now blockading every ship that coordinates with Iran.
“What do you think they would do if they had a nuclear weapon?” Rubio said. “They would hold the world hostage with that nuclear weapon.”
Rubio was also asked about the upcoming papal visit by an Italian journalist. He similarly said he plans to discuss “the destruction of religious liberty, the persecution of Christian minorities, and also the challenges that are being faced by Christians in Africa, where the pope just recently visited.”
“So we have a lot to talk about with them and I engage with them quite a bit on that front, so the trip is really not tied to anything other than the fact that it would be normal for us to engage with them and other secretaries of state have done that in the past,” he said.
“The pope is obviously the vicar of Christ … but he’s also the head of a nation-state and it’s an organization that has a presence in over a hundred-something countries around the world and we engage with the Vatican quite a bit because they’re present in many different places,” Rubio said.
U.S. bishop urges Congress to ‘put children and families first’ in appropriations process
The U.S. Catholic bishops are calling on Congress to move forward appropriations that promote families, protect unborn children, and support women.
In a May 4 letter to Congress, Bishop Daniel Thomas of Toledo, Ohio, who heads the Committee on Pro-Life Activities for the U.S. bishops, urged Congress “to advance appropriations that respect and affirm the dignity of all human life, from conception to natural death.”
Addressed to the chairs and vice chairs for the committees on appropriations of the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate, Thomas in the letter voiced support for policies that support women and children, defund abortion providers, and support restorative reproductive medicine.
“We continue to call for policies that put children and families first,” he said. “Funding priorities, aligned in this way, must respond to mothers in need and their babies, born and preborn alike.”
Thomas urged Congress to invest in maternal and child health as well as fully fund the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC).
“In addition to such assistance, pro-family policies ought to support husbands and wives and the integrity of the family itself,” he continued.
Thomas noted that the bishops' priorities, such as “support for the poor, migrants and refugees, foreign assistance, environmental protection, health care, housing, nutrition, and more,” are founded in the “dignity and flourishing of the human person” through “the protection of innocent, preborn lives.”
Thomas urged Congress to continue upholding the Hyde Amendment, which protects taxpayer funding from being used for abortions, and to “oppose any bill that expands taxpayer funding of elective abortion.”
He also called for an extension of “last year’s historic, one-year defunding of the abortion industry in Medicaid within the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill Act’ (H.R.1),” which expires in July.
“We urge Congress not only to extend this prohibition of funding in the budget reconciliation process but complement this effort through other appropriations packages, such as by defunding major abortion providers in the Title X family planning program,” Thomas said.
“Congress should do all it can to defund this enterprise and, instead, ensure greater support for authentic, life-affirming health care providers who truly serve mothers and their children in need,” he continued.
Planned Parenthood performed an all-time high of 434,450 abortions of unborn babies in 2023-2024, according to the organizationʼs most recent annual report. Almost half of Planned Parenthood’s revenue came from taxpayer dollars, even as abortion services increased and other services dwindled, according to the groupʼs 2024-2025 annual report.
Thomas also voiced support for restorative reproductive medicine to help couples experiencing infertility have families.
“We support funding and access to resources, such as training or research, for holistic and comprehensive restorative reproductive medicine, to help identify and treat underlying causes for those experiencing infertility,” he said.
The bishop voiced opposition to in vitro fertilization (IVF), a fertility treatment opposed by the Catholic Church in which doctors fuse sperm and eggs to create human embryos and implant them in the mother’s womb. To maximize efficiency, doctors create excess human embryos and routinely destroy undesired embryos.
“IVF represents an underregulated industry that creates hundreds of thousands or even millions of preborn children who will be interminably frozen, lost in attempts to implant them within a mother, or discarded and killed (often in a selective, eugenic manner),” Thomas said.
“By turning the conception of children into a lucrative manufacturing process, IVF also violates their rights and treats them like property,” he continued.
Nevertheless, he said, “no one has any less worth because of being conceived through IVF. Every person has infinite, inherent dignity, which must be upheld through every stage and circumstance of life.”
“Society must make it easier to welcome and raise a new child and should promote life and hope for preborn children and their mothers and fathers,” Thomas said.
René Henry Gracida, Corpus Christi bishop and World War II veteran, dies at 102
Bishop René Henry Gracida, who led multiple U.S. dioceses and whose career included combat service as a U.S. Army Air Corps tail gunner over Germany in World War II, died on May 1. He was 102 years old. His death was announced by the Diocese of Corpus Christi, Texas.
The long-lived prelate, who was ordained in 1959 and appointed a bishop by Pope Paul VI in 1971, was the bishop emeritus of Corpus Christi since his retirement in 1997. He was appointed to that diocese in 1983 and had previously served as the bishop of Pensacola-Tallahassee, Florida, and as an auxiliary bishop of Miami.
Born in New Orleans on June 9, 1923, Gracida said that as a young man he was captivated by the depiction of Jesuit martyrs in James Fenimore Cooperʼs 1826 novel "The Last of the Mohicans."
He told the journalist Jim Graves in 2016 that upon entering the Benedictine monastery he took the name of the Jesuit martyr Rene Goupil, who was tortured and martyred by Iroquois in 1642.
Among the dwindling number of World War II veterans still alive, Gracida served with distinction in the U.S. Army Air Corps, flying multiple missions over Nazi-occupied Europe. In one mission over the Ruhr Valley his airplane lost two engines, leading him to nearly bail out over enemy territory before the craft recovered.
His flying career did not end after World War II. He told Graves that following a stint in the hospital in 1972 after he drove across Southern Florida performing dozens of confirmations, he acquired a pilotʼs license and a small aircraft, which allowed him to fly around the archdiocese rather than spend long hours on the road.
In several instances, he said, he blacked out during intense thunderstorms, waking up at different altitudes than when he lost consciousness. “It’s another example of God preserving my life,” he said.
Gracida said that he considered EWTN foundress Mother Angelica a friend. In his 2005 biography of Mother Angelica, Raymond Arroyo noted that when the U.S. bishops debated the extent of their collaboration with EWTN in 1988, Gracida “cinched the deal” by proposing that the bishops adhere to a secret ballot when voting on any disputes.
Gracida was among the signatories of the Aug. 11, 2017, “filial correction” addressed to then-Pope Francis over the Holy Fatherʼs apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia.
In his later years he was known for expressing a number of controversial views, including a claim that Pope Benedict XVIʼs 2013 resignation was invalid. He was a vocal supporter of the Traditional Latin Mass.
In announcing his death, the Diocese of Corpus Christi said that under his leadership it developed its communications arm and expanded ministries throughout the diocese.
A trained architect, the bishop reportedly reviewed all diocesan building proposals before they were sent to construction. The bishop in his retirement “remained active and was an avid hunter and fisher,” the diocese said.
Earlier this year, in a statement to the advocacy group Catholics for Catholics, he exhorted listeners to “keep the faith.”
“As long as your faith is a motivating factor in your life, guiding what you do, youʼre on the right track,” he said.
He told Graves in 2016 that his many brushes with death — including a near-fatal case of pneumonia in the 1950s — led him to believe that he was kept alive for a purpose.
“I have no doubt that the only reason I’m alive today ... is because God has work for me to do,” he said at the time. “I have a message to deliver; God has kept me alive to deliver it.”
On his 56th birthday, new bishop in Philippines appointed by Pope Leo XIV
Pope Leo XIV has appointed Father Nick Argel Vaquilar as the new bishop of Urdaneta in the Philippines on the very day of Vaquilarʼs 56th birthday and two days before the anniversary of his priestly ordination.
“I know that I am not capable of this big responsibility,” Vaquilar said. "But being chosen for this big responsibility, I am hoping for all the help from God, for I know he will guide me as a pastor,” the bishop-designate said after David William Antonio, archbishop of Nueva Segovia — the jurisdiction in which Vaquilar had served until now — announced his appointment.
“Your presence is a blessing, and we look forward to journeying together in faith, hope, and service. Thank you for saying ‘yes’ to this new ministry. The local Church of Urdaneta is blessed to have you as our new shepherd,” the Diocese of Urdaneta posted on Facebook.
Vaquilar succeeds Bishop Jacinto A. José, who led the diocese for over 20 years and whose resignation the pope accepted after the prelate reached the age of 75, the retirement age for bishops in the Catholic Church.
Who is the new bishop of Urdaneta?
Born on May 3, 1970, in the town of Cabugao in Ilocos Sur province, Vaquilar studied philosophy at the San Pablo University Seminary in Baguio and theology at the Immaculate Conception School of Theology in Vigan. He earned a licentiate in theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and a doctorate in biblical theology from the Loyola School of Theology in Quezon City.
He was ordained a priest on May 5, 1997, for the Archdiocese of Nueva Segovia.
He has held the following positions, among others: parochial vicar of the Metropolitan Cathedral of St. Paul in Vigan (1997–2000, 2004); professor and resident formator at the Immaculate Conception School of Theology in Vigan (2000–2001, 2005–2009); and rector of the Immaculate Conception School of Theology in Vigan (2009–2011, and subsequently, since 2015).
He has also served as parish priest at St. Nicholas of Tolentine in Sinait (2013–2014) and as director of the Archdiocesan Biblical Apostolate since 2018.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.
‘Prison or exile’: Priest in Nicaragua reveals how the dictatorship persecutes the Church
Every Sunday, the police arrive to photograph him. He must report to authorities every time he leaves his parish and about every liturgical service in which he participates. If he speaks of any social issue during a homily, he risks one of two things: imprisonment or exile.
Speaking anonymously to ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News, a priest in active service in Nicaragua revealed the exact mechanisms by which the dictatorship of President Daniel Ortega and his wife and vice president, Rosario Murillo, control, surveil, and silence the Catholic Church in the country.
The Nicaraguan dictatorship intensified its persecution of the Church in 2018 after bishops and priests offered to mediate between the regime and civil society in the wake of popular protests. Documented attacks against Catholics in the country now total over 1,030, and 149 priests have been expelled or exiled.
The priest said the population “has grown accustomed to the situation and no longer says anything. I sense a calm atmosphere, yet the restrictions, which are always present, persist, because there is no freedom.”
Every Sunday, 'the police arrive to take my photograph’
Speaking about how the police monitor priests and bishops, the priest recounted: “Whenever there are liturgical services, we have to report what they are and where they are being held; we have to report when we leave our parish boundaries, and we have to state how long we intend to remain at any location outside of it.”
“And the police arrive to take my photograph, always, every Sunday. It’s a way of verifying that we are where we said we would be. Police superiors require their officers to provide evidence of the visits they conduct, and thatʼs how they maintain control,” he added.
“If you fail to give notice,” the priest continued, “sometimes nothing happens; but other times when they realize that youʼre outside the parish and didn’t give prior notice, they make a call. There have been times when it simply slipped my mind to let them know.”
Regarding the bishops, he said he believes that “yes, they are monitored, they are kept under surveillance. And the police are constantly asking about this or that meeting: where it’s going to take place and whether the bishop will be there.” It also appears the police do in fact “have some person along with his vehicle assigned to” follow the bishops.
Political or social issues avoided in homilies
The priest explained that no priest can speak about social or political topics; otherwise, he risks being considered an opponent to the regime and it could cost him one of two things: “imprisonment or exile.”
“If we speak about a social problem or something currently taking place, they may view us as opponents, as if we were delivering a speech inciting rebellion. And so, they keep watch. They listen whether in person or via broadcasts, and they record us and file reports,” he said.
Any criticism of the dictatorship, he added, “they interpret as political discourse or an act of insurrection. And so that can have consequences.”
The priest recounted that whenever he learns of a fellow priest being imprisoned, there is “total silence. You can’t visit them; you can’t speak with them.”
Pressure on the bishops
ACI Prensa asked the priest why the bishops of Nicaragua do not typically speak about the situation in the country or criticize the dictatorship.
“First, perhaps, out of fear of being expelled. I believe thatʼs the primary factor. And there is the fear of leaving a large population of believers [without a bishop] as happened in Matagalpa, Estelí, or Jinotega” where the bishops are in exile, the priest noted.
The four dioceses currently without a bishop present in the country are Jinotega, whose bishop, Carlos Herrera, serves as president of the bishops' conference; Siuna, Matagalpa, and Estelí. The latter two are headed by Bishop Rolando Álvarez, who was exiled to Rome in January 2024.
The priest noted that “in the dioceses where the bishops are absent, there are no priestly ordinations, primarily because the bishops are not there.”
“They [the police] are specifically keeping those dioceses under surveillance,” he added, explaining that a bishop from another diocese is also not permitted to ordain priests who fall outside his own jurisdiction.
In a diocese where the bishop is still present, he continued, “ordinations do take place, but they are conducted with great prudence and caution; they are not given much publicity or promoted in the media, so as to avoid any difficulties.”
The priest noted that there has been a decline in the number of priests due to expulsions, and that the most affected diocese is Matagalpa, with nearly half of its clergy now outside the country — a reprisal against Álvarez, who “in his homilies never sugarcoated” the situation in Nicaragua.
Processions banned in Nicaragua
The priest said that while most processions are banned, “there are some, traditionally massive in scale, that have been permitted,” such as those for St. Jerome or the Virgin of Mercy; “but more for their cultural and tourism value and not because it might be an opening toward the faith which they [the police] have otherwise closed.”
The priest recalled when he requested permission from the police to hold a procession and an officer told him that they could imprison him if he proceeded with it.
How does the Church get by day to day?
In 2023, the dictatorship banned the inflow of foreign funds to the Catholic Church after accusing it of “money laundering,” an accusation deemed “ridiculous” at the time by Félix Maradiaga, president of the Freedom for Nicaragua Foundation, while simultaneously freezing the bank accounts of the country’s parishes and dioceses in an attempt to further curtail their activities.
“There are no [parish] vehicles, and it’s impossible to purchase them using the offertory funds because the people are poor. So I have to go around asking people to give me a ride,” he recounted.
Among the many institutions whose legal status was revoked by the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship — meaning they cease to function and their assets are transferred to the regime — is Caritas Nicaragua, the charitable arm of the Catholic Church, which was dissolved by the dictatorship in March 2023.
“We no longer have access to Caritas or foreign aid, because all of that has been banned. Consequently, here, assistance is provided by the population itself amid their poverty,” the priest emphasized.
Without the assistance of Caritas, “it’s the community itself that takes it upon itself to help us. We rely on divine providence, and thatʼs how we carry on.”
“If we survive, it’s because of the help of the people themselves. The people pay for the electricity and the water. These costs are not paid with the collection or offerings. The same goes for food; the people pitch in to help me. Without that, it would not be sustainable,” he explained.
“We collaborate with the people; we help, we deliver food, provisions to certain people. I haven’t had any issues with the police in that regard, but I do it publicly; I don’t do it in secret,” he explained.
According to an April World Bank report, 2.8 million people in Nicaragua live in poverty.
Are there vocations in Nicaragua?
The Nicaraguan priest highlighted that, despite everything, there still are vocations. “It’s true that there was a decline in vocations after 2018. There was significant attrition and a decrease in numbers, and many young people left the country; however, vocations are currently on the rise.”
The year 2018 marked a turning point in the persecution against the Church. Protests against the dictatorship prompted the regime to intensify its multifaceted attacks against Catholics. Nicaraguan lawyer and activist Martha Patricia Molina, author of the report ”Nicaragua: A Persecuted Church,” provides a detailed account of these attacks.
“Today, vocations are once again beginning to resurge in the seminaries. Before last year there were few, but today the number of seminarians has already risen,” the priest added.
Despite the tribulations, the Church in Nicaragua ‘walks with hope’
The priest said “a characteristic of Nicaraguans is their love for the pope, because he [represents human] dignity and the Church, it’s something that characterizes the Nicaraguan Catholic.”
Bolstered by the pope’s encouragement expressed to the exiled Nicaraguan bishops in August 2025 and despite all the difficulties facing Nicaragua, the priest said there are reasons for hope, such as those newly baptized at Easter.
“I believe that the Church in Nicaragua is a suffering Church; yet, above all that suffering, we press onward. We are spurred on and find hope in the knowledge of what Easter has given us: the resurrection of Christ, that Christ is alive, that Christ is with us, and that he walks in our midst,” he said.
“Even amid these tribulations,” he affirmed, “the Church in Nicaragua moves forward with confidence; it moves forward with hope. We’re not sorrowful; we are joyful. We simply hope to receive the solidarity and attention of the world, and that, one day, we may be able to live out our faith in complete freedom.”
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.
Irish bishop: Truth about abortion is ‘it not only kills babies, it wounds women’
Bishop Kevin Doran of the Diocese of Achonry in Ireland delivered a homily at the Newman University Church in Dublin on the occasion of the May 4 March for Life in Dublin organized by the Pro Life Campaign.
In his homily, Doran addressed the relationship between science, faith, and human dignity, centering his message on the truth regarding the human embryo and the child in the mother’s womb.
He reminded the congregation that there is no conflict between the truth of science and the truth of faith, and clarified that the starting point of faith “is the revealed word of God, which, for us Christians, comes to its completeness in the person and teaching of Jesus.”
Along these lines, he emphasized that scientific advancements have made it possible to confirm that the genetic identity of a new individual “is already established once fertilization has occurred,” noting that “what happens after that is an amazing process of growth and development.”
Based on this, the theologian and bioethicist further stated that anyone who denies the essential continuity between the embryo and the baby born nine months later “is flying in the face of truth.”
Referencing Greek philosophers such as Aristotle, Socrates, and Plato, he noted that “in every living thing there must be a first principle of life which explained and governed all its action.”
“Human action,” he continued, “includes complex reasoning and the formation of concepts, which are beyond the limits of the material world.”
This, according to Doran, led many of these thinkers to conclude “that the first principle of life in human beings must be a spiritual soul.”
The bishop pointed out that “once there is a living body, even one as small as an embryo, there must be a soul which explains and directs all its growth and development and its action throughout the cycle of life.”
He also emphasized that “everything in the universe is not only created by God but finds its purpose and meaning in an order established by God,” underscoring that “there is an intelligent plan, and we mess with nature at our peril.”
Abortion not only kills babies but also wounds women
In light of these considerations, the bishop noted that abortion “not only kills babies, it also wounds women in the depth of their being” and does “untold moral and spiritual damage to all who promote it or who participate in it, precisely because it flies in the face of truth.”
In connection with the introduction of a new bill to expand the availability of abortion in the country, he questioned the reasons why some legislators seem determined “to ignore the truth or to deny it entirely.”
In this regard, he appealed to the responsibility of Catholics to know the Gospel of Life “in all its dimensions, and to confidently bear witness to it, both in our private lives and in the public space.”
“We need to find new ways of offering life-affirming support to women who are in crisis during pregnancy or after the birth of a child,” he emphasized.
Doran recalled the invitation of Pope Leo XIV: “The Church is called to reach all peoples, not by imposing itself but by bearing witness to the truth in charity.”
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.
Pope Leo XIV says violence is a last resort, rejects Trump’s claim about supporting nuclear weapons
CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy — Pope Leo XIV said violence must always be a last resort and rejected U.S. President Donald Trump’s claim that he supports Iran having a nuclear weapon.
The American president has repeatedly said he doesn’t want a pope who thinks Iran should have a nuclear weapon, even though the pope has never endorsed that view and has consistently spoken against nuclear arms.
Pope Leo XIV said May 5: “I have already spoken from the very first moment of being elected, and now we are close to the anniversary. I said, ‘Peace be with you,’ and the Church’s mission is to preach the Gospel, to preach peace. If someone wants to criticize me for proclaiming the Gospel, let them do so truthfully.”
“The Church has spoken for years against all nuclear weapons, so there is no doubt there. And so I simply hope to be listened to for the value of God’s words,” Leo said to the press outside the papal villa of Castel Gandolfo before returning to Rome after a daylong stay there, two days before a scheduled meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Trump said May 4 on the "The Hugh Hewitt Show": “The pope would rather talk about the fact that it’s OK for Iran to have a nuclear weapon. I don’t think that’s very good. I think he’s endangering a lot of Catholics and a lot of people, but I guess if it’s up to the pope, he thinks it’s just fine for Iran to have a nuclear weapon.”
“I donʼt want a pope who thinks itʼs OK for Iran to have a nuclear weapon,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on April 12.
Leo has never said that Iran should have nuclear weapons, and he has spoken specifically against nuclear weapons:
- “May the nuclear threat never again dictate the future of humanity," he said in a March 5 video message.
- In June 2025, he called for a world free from nuclear threat in appealing for peace between Iran and Israel.
Pope Leo answered an EWTN reporter’s question about whether his statement that “God does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war” applies to all who take up arms, even in self-defense, or only to unjust aggressors.
“Self-defense has traditionally always been allowed by the Church,” Pope Leo XIV said.
“To talk about just war today, itʼs a very complex problem. You have to analyze it on many levels, but ever since the entrance into the nuclear age, the whole concept of war has to be reevaluated with terms today,” Leo said.
“I always believe that itʼs much better to enter into dialogue than to look for arms and to support the arms industry, which gains billions and billions of dollars each year, instead of sitting down at the table solving our problems and using money to solve humanitarian issues, hunger in the world, et cetera,” he said.
For a war to be justified, according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, it must be waged to fight against a grave evil, the damage caused by waging the war cannot be graver than the evil it is meant to eliminate, there must be a serious prospect of success, and all alternatives to war must have already been tried. The decision to go to war must be made by a lawful authority responsible for the common good. All criteria must be met to qualify as a just war.
Meeting with Rubio
The pope’s meeting with Rubio this week follows a period of tension between the Holy See and the Trump administration. In April, Trump attacked the pontiff on social media, calling him “weak on crime and terrible for foreign policy” in response to the pontiffʼs appeals for peace amid the U.S.-Israel war on Iran. The pope told reporters he “perhaps” may comment on the meeting with Rubio afterward.
Brian Burch, U.S. ambassador to the Holy See, was asked May 5 about the state of the U.S.-Vatican relationship.
“I donʼt accept the idea that somehow thereʼs some deep rift,” Burch said. “I think nations have disagreements and I think one of the ways that you work through those is, as the Holy See says, is through fraternity and authentic dialogue. I think the secretary is coming here in that spirit, to have a frank conversation about U.S. policy, to engage in dialogue, to better understand each other and to work through — if there are differences — certainly to talk through that.”
The meeting will focus on “Middle East policy and our efforts there to bring about a more peaceful world,” Burch said, areas of “deep cooperation, shared interests, and in many ways, I think, shared goals.”
Burch said Rubioʼs visit “speaks to our deep desire to engage in exactly what the Holy See has called for: fraternity and authentic dialogue.”
The Church’s stance toward war is that it must be avoided. The Church has long held concerns about war to be a moral subject, with St. Augustine writing extensively about it in the early fifth century and popes and theologians both commenting on just war doctrine generally and speaking out about specific wars for centuries.
Popes seldom issue blanket rulings but Pope Benedict XV made clear World War I lacked moral legitimacy given its scale, civilian toll, and lack of proportionate ends. Pope John Paul II warned the Gulf War did not meet just war criteria. And the Vatican formally stated in 2003 that the invasion of Iraq failed just‑war standards.
In his Easter Sunday urbi et orbi message, Leo asked people of goodwill to search always for peace and not violence. He again asked people April 7 “to reject war, especially a war which many people have said is an unjust war, which is continuing to escalate and is not resolving anything,” the pope said. “We have a worldwide economic crisis, energy crisis, situation in the Middle East of great instability, which is only provoking more hatred throughout the world.”
Pope Leo XIV in his Easter homily called for peace throughout the world, urging Christians to carry the hope of the Resurrection into a world wounded by war, violence, and injustice.
Javier Romero and Brian Schumacher contributed to this story.
Hezbollah supporters allegedly launch digital campaign targeting Maronite patriarch
Hezbollah supporters have reportedly used AI-generated manipulated images to target Cardinal Bechara Boutros al-Rai, the Maronite patriarch of Antioch and All the East.
The patriarch described the digital attack on him as “a war of words, not freedom of opinion, but a worrying decline in the standards of language and values, and a violation of human dignity that no one has the right to infringe upon, regardless of its source or form.”
The digital attack involved the circulation of altered images portraying the patriarch in mocking and degrading ways.
Jowelle M. Howayeck, a Lebanese civic activist and 2022 parliamentary candidate, argued that the campaign is neither spontaneous nor ambiguous in its intent. “It is both intimidation and sectarian provocation, and it is deliberate,” she said.
For Howayeck, the timing is not accidental. She links the campaign to a broader political context in which Hezbollah is “losing political ground,” prompting what she describes as a predictable shift in strategy: “Divert attention from the core issue and construct a new confrontation that can be framed as a symbolic victory.”
In her view, “this is not political engagement. It is crisis management through fear, distraction, and division.”
The campaign, she added, also reflects a deepening rupture between Hezbollah and the Christian community.
Digital confrontations of this kind are not new in Lebanon’s political landscape, but they carry particular risks in a country built on a fragile and strained social contract.
The patriarch himself has been targeted before "because the patriarch represents a form of authority that cannot be coerced or absorbed: moral legitimacy anchored in national identity," Howayeck said. "Whenever his positions align with state sovereignty, they expose a structural contradiction within the opposing project.”
Outrage grows over alleged bulldozing of Catholic monastery and school in Lebanon
In southern Lebanon, the village of Yaroun has drawn widespread attention after images and video circulated showing the demolition, allegedly by Israeli forces, of a monastery and Catholic school belonging to the Salvatorian Sisters.
Yarounʼs mayor, Adib Ajaka, rejected claims by the Israeli army that it did not know the buildings were religious places, and the Council of Melkite Greek Catholic Bishops in Lebanon urged the Lebanese government and the United Nations “to protect the property of civilians and religious institutions, citing in particular the village of Yaroun,” according to the Associated Press.
Speaking to ACI MENA, the Arabic-language sister service of EWTN News, Ajaka clarified that some media outlets have been recirculating images of a destroyed church as if they were from the latest incident, but the church itself had already been targeted multiple times since 2024. He stressed that the most recent incident concerns the demolition of the monastery and the school.
Responding to the Israeli army’s claim that “there were no indications that it was a religious building,” Ajaqa rejected the statement as unconvincing, noting that the site was clearly identifiable, bearing a cross and a statue of the Virgin Mary.
He also pointed out that the church had been targeted previously and that footage from 2024 showed the deliberate destruction of a statue of St. George.
Ajaka said images published by Israel showing the diocese and a nearby clinic were used to suggest that the monastery had not been destroyed, but in reality they referred to a separate building housing a clinic run by the Order of Malta. He suggested that the presence of the organization’s flag may have contributed to it being spared so far.
According to Ajaka, the bulldozing operations took place after the ceasefire came into effect. At first, residents did not grasp the scale of what was happening, as they remained in contact with nearby towns such as Rmeish and Ain Ebel, where no strikes or shelling had been reported from Yaroun. This created the impression that the village had not been directly targeted. It later became clear, however, that what had taken place was not bombardment but the widespread bulldozing of homes.
Yaroun is home to about 60 Melkite Catholic families — all of whom fled at the outbreak of the war in 2024. Seventeen families returned during the initial ceasefire period, but many others were unable to do so due to the destruction of their homes. Today, residents remain unable to return, scattered between rented accommodations, monasteries, and relatives’ homes, while some have relocated to nearby Christian villages in the south.
Ajaka noted that assistance to residents has so far been limited, emphasizing that the most urgent need is direct financial support to help cover rent. At the same time, he expressed gratitude for the support provided by the Vatican and for the continued efforts of the apostolic nuncio through regular visits and follow-up on the situation of displaced families.
He also recalled that during the pope’s visit to Lebanon in December 2025, a historic stone from the village church dating back to 1872, engraved with an image of St. George, was presented to him in the hope of drawing attention to Yaroun and its people.
Today, the fate of this stone remains unknown, as the church has been destroyed and residents are unable to return to see what remains. Ajaka stressed that the destroyed homes of the Catholic families there are over a century old and are purely civilian properties.
Church vandalism across Lebanon
The alleged demolitions in Yaroun come amid recent and varied incidents of church vandalism in Lebanon, with multiple places of worship targeted and their contents deliberately damaged.
Among them, the Church of Mar Shalita in Qobeiyat was stormed and vandalized. And in Ajaltoun, the Church of Our Lady was targeted, with intruders stealing items, destroying furniture, and leaving bullets scattered on the floor.
Taken together, these incidents reflect a broader climate in which Lebanese Christians increasingly feel under pressure, facing different forms of intimidation and attack from multiple actors.
This story was first published by ACI MENA, the Arabic-language sister service of EWTN News, and has been adapted by EWTN News English.
Legionaries leader rebuilds vocation after Maciel scandal: Pain ‘opened our eyes’
Can a religious congregation survive after its founder turns out to have been a sexual abuser and a liar who lived a double life for years? The Legionaries of Christ have spent 20 years answering that question with actions.
They were pioneers in publishing the cases of their abusive priests — an unprecedented step in consecrated life — and in submitting 80 years of a dark history to public scrutiny. Today, they are an ecclesial reference point for transparency. Now, Father Carlos Gutiérrez López, 51, the new general director elected in February, speaks with ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News, about the road that still lies ahead.
It is a path of expiation that began in 2006 but reached a turning point in 2019 with the publication of the “1941–2019 Report,” the first of its kind to include all cases from the congregation’s founding to the present day and throughout the world. Since then, it has been updated each year through the “Truth, Justice, and Healing” reports.
“Since we began facing this reality, although it was very painful, it also opened our eyes: There was a lot of work to do,” Gutiérrez López said. “In recent years we have been working hard to meet standards, following the documents issued by the Church, collaborating with canonical and civil authorities. We have been putting a certain order in place so we can attend to and respond to the needs of victims and provide comprehensive care in different areas.”
His priestly vocation, marked by the wound left by Maciel
His own vocational story was marked by the scandal that shook the congregation because of its founder, Mexican priest Marcial Maciel, who was responsible for extremely serious sexual abuse. Gutiérrez López was ordained a priest in 2009, just as the magnitude of Maciel’s crimes was coming to light: Maciel had sexually abused dozens of minors over several decades and had lived, as the Vatican confirmed in 2010, “a life devoid of scruples and genuine religious sentiment.”
“It was definitely something very strong, something that left all of us very perplexed, frightened, and also disillusioned,” he said in an interview with ACI Prensa. “And that meant for me a very deep process of reflection in which I had to ask why I was giving my life to God and also the question: Why remain here?”
Maciel died in 2008 without acknowledging his crimes or asking for forgiveness, even though a Vatican investigative commission had already revealed his criminal activity beyond any doubt.
After the scandal, Gutiérrez López explained, the figure of the founder ceased to be a reference point: “Definitely, the founder is no longer a spiritual reference point, a moral reference point for us. And for me, that reference point, I saw, had always been Our Lord Jesus Christ, whom we seek to imitate and with whom we also seek to have that personal relationship.”
Benedict XVI saw the light that was in them
Despite all the evil committed by the founder, Benedict XVI never failed to recognize in the Legionaries of Christ “a healthy community” made up of “young people who want to serve the faith with enthusiasm,” as the pontiff himself emphasized in the book-length interview with Peter Seewald “Light of the World.”
From the beginning, the Vatican established that the congregation’s review should be built around three fundamental axes: the redefinition of its charism or spirituality; the review of the exercise of authority — whose abusive control of consciences allowed Maciel to live a double life for years — and the guarantee of adequate formation for seminarians and priests. In addition, to complete the long process of purification, a constant dialogue was opened with victims inside and outside the Legion.
“The Church accompanied us throughout a whole process of renewal. We reviewed constitutions, we reviewed many of the norms we had been living in the congregation, the style of apostolate we carried out — in short, it was an entire review that lasted many years,” Gutiérrez López said.
For many Legionary seminarians and priests, the support of the Church was decisive; like a “mother,” the Church “showed the way,” he emphasized.
“Seeing how the Legion was responding, I said: Well, I also want to help the Church with my priesthood to move this congregation forward, because the congregation can also contribute and give much to the Church in evangelization. In the end, we are here to serve God Our Lord, in the Church, and in this call that he made to me. As I have gone step by step, I have felt very happy, and that has also been my experience,” he said.
First meeting with Pope Leo XIV
During the audience the Legionaries had with Pope Leo XIV in February, the pontiff returned to several key points of the deep renewal they have carried out in fidelity to the Church. For example, he emphasized to them that authority in the Church must be lived as fraternal and spiritual service, not as a form of domination.
For the Mexican priest, this is a demanding but profoundly evangelical ideal.
“Yes, I really liked that part of the audience,” Gutiérrez López said.
He especially highlighted the moment when the pope invited the Legionaries to approach people “with a respectful and compassionate gaze,” aware that every encounter means entering “a sacred space.”
Drawing on his own experience as a superior and as territorial director in northern Mexico and Colombia, Gutiérrez López said he has always been clear that authority is above all a service: “For my brothers, I am offering them a service. … What they share with me is something sacred, and I have to respect that sacredness,” he said.
Gutiérrez López is not naive. He knows well that many people may wonder how it is possible to separate the deplorable actions of the founder, who was responsible for so many crimes, from the charism that the Legionaries of Christ embody today.
“It is a valid question,” he said.
In this regard, he noted that it was the Church herself that “from the beginning,” when she asked the Legionaries to “review our constitutions,” placed the fundamental question before them: “What is your charism? What is the charism and the contribution that the Legion makes?”
“The charism, I believe, is something we have been discovering, and it is nothing other than forming apostles to transmit the love of Christ, to form apostles and also send them to evangelize the world and help the Church in this evangelization,” he said.
According to the congregation’s statistics, updated as of Dec. 31, 2025, the Legionaries of Christ have 1,327 members worldwide, including 52 religious with perpetual vows and 151 with temporary vows.
Despite the wounds of the past, they continue to attract vocations: Currently, 250 minor seminarians are being formed in vocational centers, reflecting the continued weight of initial formation within the congregation.
The Legionaries of Christ belong to Regnum Christi, which also includes the Consecrated Women of Regnum Christi, with 479 consecrated women in 53 communities around the world; the Lay Consecrated Men of Regnum Christi, with 47 lay consecrated men in eight communities; and lay members: 21,712 lay young people and adults older than 16 and 14,353 lay members younger than 16.
In Regnum Christi’s educational work — 139 schools and 14 universities — 153,219 students are being educated.
The new general director explained that one of the keys to eradicating abuse from within the congregation has been swiftly applying standards for the protection of minors and vulnerable adults in the 23 countries where it is present.
“In recent years we have been very strict in applying these standards and in perfecting them so they can be lived well. In each of the countries where we are working, we have sought to have the necessary teams that can respond, made up of professionals. These are things that we priests cannot do alone. We need specialists — psychologists, lawyers, and so on — to help us truly be very serious in complying with these standards,” he said.
An engineer-priest with broad international experience
Affable and approachable, Gutiérrez López is used to moving in international settings. He studied philosophy and theology at the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum as well as industrial and systems engineering at the Monterrey Institute of Technology. He also holds a master’s degree in psychology from Divine Mercy University in the United States.
He has carried out his ministry in Chile, Italy, Colombia, Venezuela, and Mexico.
“It has been a great richness to have that experience, to be in contact with different cultures, to know the needs of each country, to learn to listen, to adapt to what a society and a culture are like, to understand them in order to offer and bring them the message that leads to the Church, which is knowing Christ and living one’s faith,” he said.
“I believe that has also been personally enriching, now that my Legionary brothers have elected me to this role, so that I can respond and accompany the different territories,” he added.
Until his election as general director, he served as territorial director of northern Mexico, a region deeply wounded by violence, poverty, organized crime, and migration flows toward the United States. The Legionaries also try to be a balm for migrants — many of them deportees — amid their suffering.
“The whole situation of migrants and organized crime truly causes suffering for many families affected by this reality. What we seek, above all, is to form young people and families, to instill values in them, precisely so they can begin to change their social environment,” he said.
In this context, he explained that alongside the private schools the congregation operates in cities in northern Mexico, there are also the Mano Amiga schools, intended for families with limited resources and supported through subsidies and scholarships.
The goal is to offer these children an education that will allow them to enter a profession and pursue university studies — “a way to change the destiny of their lives, open horizons for them, and, above all, form them in values so they can transform their environment.”
With his election at the most recent general chapter, the Legionaries of Christ have entrusted Gutiérrez López with the task of continuing the congregation’s process of renewal and strengthening its evangelizing service, with special attention to the existential peripheries.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.