At the Sunday Angelus, the pope prayed for “a just and lasting peace” as the Church closed a monthlong Marian appeal for countries ravaged by war.
Pope Leo XIV just released his first encyclical — and it may be the most important Church document of our lifetime.
The pope thanked Anthropic co-founder Christopher Olah for his presence at the presentation: “What a great sign of hope it is that with our differences we can listen to one another.”
On the solemnity of Pentecost, which this year is celebrated on May 24, Catholics have the opportunity to gain a plenary indulgence.
The pontiff marked World Communications Day by urging technology to remain centered on human dignity.
Founded amid hardship and change, the centennial of St. Mary Star of the Sea in Jackson, Michigan, brings together generations to honor a diverse parish that continues to thrive.
Organizers of the Würzburg congress told EWTN News the group’s guidelines contain ‘no contradiction with the Catechism.’
The pope also accepted Wednesday the resignation of Bishop Frank J. Dewane, 76, who led the Diocese of Venice, Florida, since 2007.
The Ortega regime’s repression of the Catholic Church could not silence God’s call to Cristhian Mendieta. Having fled Nicaragua as a seminarian, the young man was ordained to the priesthood in Miami.
The Vatican’s message for Vesak calls Buddhists and Christians to promote an “unarmed and disarming” peace rooted in truth, compassion, and mutual trust.
![After stillbirth loss, mother of 7 returns to school to help others heal #Catholic After experiencing an unimaginable loss, Kelly Helsel felt called to begin a new chapter. Following 17 years as a stay-at-home mother, she returned to school to pursue her dream of becoming a counselor — hoping to offer others the same compassionate support and Catholic guidance that helped bring healing to her own life.In 2023 Helsel’s daughter, Mary Catherine, was stillborn. The experience and grief was ultimately “a huge catalyst to me going back to school,” Helsel told EWTN News.“I think death has an interesting way of snapping your priorities in line,” she said. “And through the death of our daughter, I understood that tomorrow was not promised. And I had been holding this dream very closely for 17 years, just trusting,” she said.“Much of my healing process after the stillbirth of our daughter was helped along by solid Catholic counseling,” she said. “So I just felt a whisper at first, and then I felt like, ‘I can turn around and be this for someone else in need.’ And so I did.”Path back to schoolA native of Arizona, Helsel met her now-husband, Doug, in high school. She then attended Northern Arizona University to receive a bachelorʼs degree in psychology with the hopes of becoming a counselor, but motherhood ultimately became her first priority.“My firstborn … was born during finals week of my bachelorʼs degree,” Helsel said. “I actually had a positive pregnancy test the day before I was scheduled to take the GRE [Graduate Record Examination].”“I just knew that motherhood was the priority and that Godʼs timing would take care of things. So I stayed at home,” she said.Helsel decided to put her plans of working as a counselor on the side and focus on her growing family. She and her husband had seven children over the next 17 years, but after the loss of their sixth child she felt called to switch her plans and return to school. “We just started taking one step in front of the other,” she said. Helsel started by applying to the University of Mary’s master’s program for counseling about six months after her daughter’s passing but was thrown an unexpected “curveball” during the process.“On the feast of the Annunciation, I got in. But then I also had a positive pregnancy test with my daughter, Isabel, on the very same day.”“I remember standing in the bathroom with my husband with my phone in one hand with an acceptance letter, and on the counter was a positive pregnancy test with our seventh baby.”Motherhood provided ‘the skills to be a fantastic student’Despite navigating grief, welcoming a new baby, and continuing to care for the rest of her family, Helsel not only decided to return to school but also opted for a five-semester accelerated program.She graduated on April 25 with a 4.0 GPA and her whole family by her side. It was all possible not in spite of her 17 years as a stay-at-home mom but because of the experience.
Kelly Helsel, her husband Doug Helsel, and their children at her graduation a the University of Mary on April 25, 2026. | Credit: Photo courtesy of Kelly Helsel
“I actually think that motherhood, 17 years of motherhood, gave me the skills to be a fantastic student,” she said. “I learned time management. I learned prioritization. I learned how to ask for help. I learned all kinds of things in the trenches of motherhood that gave me the opportunity to really thrive at UMary.” “I guess the loss of my daughter really showed me that like all things are ‘figure-out-able,’” she said. “When youʼve gone through something like that, it makes you unafraid to do really big things.”“I knew that I could just cannonball into the deep end and we could do this. And my husband was an amazing support throughout the program. But, Isabel was the curveball of all curveballs,” she said.“She was born during Christmas break and I just jumped back in in January. I didnʼt take any time off,” she said. "I would be in a rocking chair breastfeeding her, and my laptop is sitting next to me and Iʼm listening to a lecture.”“I became a pro at using the dictation tool on Microsoft Word” so “I could hold my baby and dictate a paper,” she said. “It was just a really wild time. I learned to be extremely flexible and gentle with myself ... But I just knew God was like, ‘go, go right now.’”“It was super bumpy at some points,“ she said. ”But I chose the University of Mary because I feel like [University of Mary president] Monsignor [James] Shea and the university really put their money where their mouth is in terms of supporting nontraditional students — especially mothers.”“All of my professors were extremely accommodating with extensions if I needed one. A few professors gave me early finals because Isabel was born right at the end of that first semester,” she said. “So the University of Mary was really crucial to my success because everyone was behind me.” Helsel noted that her professors, especially counseling professor Olivia Wedel, and other facility members and students were champions in cheering her “all the way to the finish line.”Waddell “would always remind me that ‘Iʼm surrounded by support,’” Helsel said. “When youʼre super tired and youʼre on your fourth Crock-Pot meal of the week and you donʼt have anymore bandwidth left, I just thought, ‘I am surrounded by support.’”“Jesus is real and his promises are too,” Helsel said. “I just remember really having to trust the Lord in a new way and also having to be very open to my dream not looking exactly like I wanted.”“So yes, I went back to school and I got a masterʼs degree, but it looked absolutely nothing like I thought it was going to, but it was also better, just like he had promised me.”“Your dreams matter to him,“ she said. ”Trust him, and especially Our Lady, with your dreams. Because he wants both. He wants your motherhood and your dreams.”Catholic counseling offers ‘the keys to real human flourishing’Officially a licensed counselor, Helsel is ready to jump in headfirst to help others in need by utilizing the guidance offered by the Catholic Church.“I believe very deeply that the Catholic Church has the keys to real human flourishing,” she said. “So I knew I wanted to become a mental health professional with those guardrails in place, because I benefited so much from Catholic counseling.”“I want to turn back around and help the next woman or couple or … anyone in line that needs to hear the good news, coupled with solid mental health formation. Like St. Thomas Aquinas says, ‘faith and reason.’ We need both.”With her “perinatal mental health training,” Helsel hopes to primarily work in the womenʼs health category “to support other women, pregnant women, postpartum women,” she said. “And obviously I have a love for people who may have lost a child in a particular way.”Helsel is interested in helping those discerning vocations, as her oldest son plans to apply to the priesthood. She is also hoping to support the vocation of marriage as it is “under a particular attack at this time.”To accomplish all of this, Helsel has already started her own private practice called Concordia Counseling.“I chose Concordia because Mary Catherine had a congenital heart condition,” she said. “Concordia means heart to heart or to bring two hearts into harmony. I wanted to honor my baby in heaven and Our Lord with my work. And so I started Concordia Counseling.”“Iʼm just getting it started. I have a caseload of about 10 clients, but Iʼm hoping to accept more,“ Helsel said. ”I know that the work I want to do most of all involves not just mental health but the teachings of the Catholic Church.”“I just think the framework needs to be formed properly, and that is the Catholic understanding of the whole person. And from there we can jump off anywhere,” she said.](https://unitedyam.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/after-stillbirth-loss-mother-of-7-returns-to-school-to-help-others-heal-catholic-after-experiencing-an-unimaginable-loss-kelly-helsel-felt-called-to-begin-a-new-chapter-following-17-years-as-a-sta-scaled.jpg)
After navigating loss and grief, Kelly Helsel is officially now a licensed counselor thanks to the guidance given to her by the Catholic Church and her desire to use her experience to help others.
![Leo XIV makes Marian pilgrimage on 1-year anniversary as pope #Catholic POMPEI, Italy — Pope Leo XIV placed his pontificate under the protection of Mary during a visit to two cities in southern Italy on Friday — the first anniversary of his election to the papacy on May 8, 2025.Leo celebrated Mass for an estimated 20,000 people outside the Shrine of Our Lady of the Rosary of Pompei, whose feast day is May 8, during the day trip to Pompei and Naples.“Exactly one year ago,” the pope said in his homily, amid thunderous applause from the assembled faithful, “when the ministry of successor of Peter was entrusted to me, it was precisely the day of the Supplication to the Virgin, this beautiful day of the Supplication to the Virgin of the Holy Rosary of Pompei! I therefore had to come here, to place my service under the protection of the Holy Virgin.”“Having then chosen the name Leo places me in the footsteps of Leo XIII, who, among his many merits, also developed a rich magisterium on the holy rosary. Added to all of this is the recent canonization of St. Bartolo Longo, apostle of the rosary,” Leo added.Before Mass, the pope — who flew about 150 miles from Rome to Pompei by helicopter early on May 8 — visited the Shrine of Our Lady of Pompei. Despite forecasts of rain, thousands of people filled Bartolo Longo Square from the first light of dawn.At the shrine, the Holy Father met the “Temple of Charity,” an organization that welcomes and assists people coming from situations of hardship.
Pope Leo XIV meets the “Temple of Charity,” an organization that welcomes and assists people coming from situations of hardship, during a pastoral visit to Pompei, Italy, on May 8, 2026. | Credit: Vatican Media
“Good morning, Pompei! Our Mother Mary — our mom — is always with us,” the pope said, informally greeting the faithful who were waiting for Mass. Before the Eucharistic celebration, Leo also greeted the sick and people with disabilities inside the shrine.The pope’s homily at the outdoor Mass focused on the power of the rosary.“The Hail Mary repeated in the holy rosary is an act of love,” he said. “Generations of believers have been shaped and safeguarded by this prayer — simple and popular, yet at the same time capable of mystical heights and a treasure chest of the most essential Christian theology.”He also called the Hail Mary prayer “an invitation to joy.”“It tells Mary, and in her all of us, that upon the ruins of our humanity, tried by sin and therefore always inclined to abuses, oppression, and war, the caress of God has come — the caress of mercy, which in Jesus takes on a human face. Mary thus becomes the mother of mercy.”“When St. John Paul II proclaimed the Year of the Rosary [2002–2003], he wished to place it in a special way under the gaze of the Virgin of Pompei,” Leo XIV continued. “Times have not improved since then. The wars still being fought in so many regions of the world call for renewed commitment, not only economic and political, but also spiritual and religious.”“Peace is born within the heart,” he added. “We cannot resign ourselves to the images of death that the news presents to us every day. St. Bartolo Longo, reflecting on Mary’s faith, called her ‘omnipotent by grace.’ Through her intercession, may an abundant outpouring of mercy come from the God of peace — touching hearts, calming resentments and fratricidal hatred, and enlightening those who bear special responsibilities of governance. No earthly power will save the world, but only the divine power of love.”At the conclusion of Mass, Pope Leo prayed together with the faithful the traditional Supplication to Our Lady of Pompei.The Supplication to the Queen of the Holy Rosary of Pompei was written in 1883 by St. Bartolo Longo. It is solemnly recited twice a year, at noon on May 8 and on the first Sunday of October. The supplication was composed in response to the invitation that Pope Leo XIII addressed to Catholics in his first encyclical on the rosary, Supremi Apostolatus Officio, calling for a spiritual commitment to confront the evils of society.
Pope Leo XIV prays at the Cathedral of the Assumption of Mary in Naples, Italy, on Friday, May 8, 2026. | Credit: Vatican Media
Visit to NaplesAfter lunch in private, Pope Leo took a helicopter about 16 miles northwest to Naples, the capital city of the Campania region of Italy, where he met with priests and religious brothers and sisters in the Naples cathedral.During his visit to the cathedral, Leo stopped in the Chapel of the Treasure of St. Januarius, where the miracle of the liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius had taken place on May 3. The pope kissed the relic and with it blessed those in the packed cathedral.After some time in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, the pope addressed the Catholic community: “What I therefore ask of you is this: Listen to one another, walk together, create a symphony of charisms and ministries, and in this way find ways to move from a pastoral ministry of maintenance to a missionary pastoral ministry, capable of engaging with the concrete lives of people.”“In a city marked by inequality, youth unemployment, school dropout rates, and fragile family situations, the proclamation of the Gospel cannot be separated from a concrete and supportive presence that involves everyone — priests, religious, and laypeople alike,” he added.Pope Leo XIV then arrived in the popemobile to Piazza del Plebiscito, the main square of Naples, where authorities estimate about 50,000 people were present.The pope’s address focused on peace and justice: a peace that “begins in the human heart, passes through relationships, takes root in neighborhoods and on the outskirts, and expands to embrace the entire city and the world.” A peace that needs justice “to be authentic” and that “can never be separated from charity.”Leo also spoke about the “Neapolitan paradox:” on the one hand, the significant increase in tourism, which however struggles to correspond to “economic dynamism capable of truly involving the entire social community.” He described a city “marked by a social divide that no longer separates the center from the outskirts but is even evident within every area, with existential peripheries nested even in the heart of the historic center.” Faced with these disparities, Pope Leo XIV recalled the presence of the state as “more necessary than ever, to provide security and confidence to citizens and to take space away from organized crime.”He then encouraged moving forward with the projects of hope taking shape in the city: “Gather your strength, work together, walk united — institutions, Church, and civil society — to connect the city, protect your children from the snares of hardship and evil, and restore to Naples its vocation to be a capital of humanity and hope.”This story was first published in multiple parts by ACI Stampa, the Italian-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.](https://unitedyam.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/leo-xiv-makes-marian-pilgrimage-on-1-year-anniversary-as-pope-catholic-pompei-italy-pope-leo-xiv-placed-his-pontificate-under-the-protection-of-mary-during-a-visit-to-two-cities-in-souther-scaled.jpg)
Pope Leo XIV traveled around 150 miles south of Rome to the Italian cities of Pompei and Naples on the first anniversary of his election.
“The pontiff is a strong advocate of climate and environmental protection, and we hope that his voice may serve as an example for humanity,” researchers wrote.
![New York City street renamed for religious sister’s decades of service #Catholic A New York City street acquired a new name this past weekend honoring a Catholic sister’s decades of dedication to the East Harlem community.On Saturday, April 25, more than 100 people gathered to celebrate the newly named street — Sister Susanne Lachapelle Way — named for the life and legacy of Lachapelle and her contributions as a registered nurse, advocate, and Little Sister of the Assumption (LSA).“With a heart rooted in justice, she dedicated herself to serving the vulnerable through home visits, healthcare, and tireless advocacy, both locally and globally,” Rosario Jimenez, director for LSA Family in Mission, told EWTN News.The event and street naming flowed from Lachapelleʼs work with Little Sisters of the Assumption Family Health Service, a community-based nonprofit based in East Harlem. Founded by the Little Sisters, the organization offers numerous programs to help vulnerable families and children meet their basic needs.
Crowd celebrates the unveiling of the Sister Susanne Lachapelle Way street sign in East Harlem, New York, on April 25, 2026. | Credit: Photo courtesy of Alysa Jette and Grace Ayres-Doyle
The group has been in the city for almost 70 years and Lachapelle “really helped to set the trajectory for the organization,” Ray Lopez, chief program officer of LSA Family Health Service, told EWTN News.She was “a foundational visionary staff person and a leader who really, to this day, has a very profound impact on many of us who are on the staff and worked shoulder to shoulder with her, learning from her,” he said.“Since her passing, weʼve all … redoubled our efforts to find a way to keep LSAʼs original mission and vision going in this current environment,” Lopez said. “We really wanted to find ways to keep her name out there and the legacy going.”The street is on the southeast corner of East 115th Street and First Avenue. "Itʼs almost the exact midpoint of where Sister Susanne Lachapelle lived in the Little Sisters of the Assumption brownstone and where the LSA Family Health Service … center is located,” Lopez said.“She walked there every day for at least two decades,” he said. “We thought it was the appropriate place.”Sister Susanne and the Little Sisters: ‘Unsung heroes’Lachapelle entered the LSA order in 1962 and took the religious name Sister Susanne Mary of the Sacred Heart. She made her final vows in 1971.
Sister Susanne Lachapelle. | Credit: Photo courtesy of LSA Family in Mission
In her 60 years of religious life, she served in numerous areas and worked with many ministries. But for 45 years she made the community of East Harlem her home, helping to spearhead the LSA Family Health Service’s programs.As a nurse, Lachapelle conducted home visits, which “was a foundational program of LSA Family Health Service,” Lopez said. “All of the programs grew out of those interactions, those early interactions of nurses going into the homes to treat the sick and poor and really seeing conditions firsthand, sitting with families at their kitchen table, hearing their stories.”“Sister Susanne and the rest of the leadership created other programs to really provide wraparound services for families,” he said. "The Little Sisters set up a food pantry and a thrift store just to make sure that people had the very basics.”“From there, the services were about connecting people with public benefits, providing support around education, education enrichment, education navigation. A lot of … programs focused on maternal child health and early childhood development.”Along with her support for health and families, Lachapelle also had a passion for protecting the environment through her commitment to Pope Francis' Laudato Si', a call to protect our common home.
Sister Susanne Lachapelle. | Credit: Photo courtesy of LSA Family in Mission
Lachapelle decided to initiate “an environmental health component to the work that the Little Sisters were doing,” Lynn Tiede, a volunteer for LSA Health Service who worked with Lachapelle, told EWTN News.“She worked with the families and saw problems like asthma and other debilitating health things, she realized that … itʼs mold, itʼs the air quality, itʼs these other things that are really at the root of these health problems.”“Everybody was just so inspired … to see her traipsing into rough, rough buildings and just without any hesitation,” Tiede said. “If you went into a home and people were dealing with asthma, you … send in the environmental health team and then they try to work to get the building management to actually address those things.”With the success of her work, she even collaborated with the human rights group and nongovernmental organization Vivat International, where she helped bring voices and environmental issues to the United Nations, but she always remained “very, very humble,” Tiede said.Due to her humility “there were a few people who were against [the street-naming] when we proposed it, because they thought she would hate it — because she was so humble,” Tiede said.
Sister Susanne Lachapelle Way in East Harlem, New York. | Credit: Photo courtesy of LSA Family in Mission
Ultimately they chose to honor Lachapelle and the Little Sisters because they are “unsung heroes — these quiet heroes,” Tiede said.The process to get the street renamed began in 2024 and it was found to be an easier process than expected, as the city council was eager to acknowledge Lachapelle and the Little Sisters.Sister Susanne’s lasting impactAt the street naming celebration organizers “were expecting around 80 participants, but I think it was maybe 150 or a little bit more,” Jimenez said. “There were community members, families that she served, youth that she served, … volunteers, and of course, our board members and benefactors.”It honored her “simplicity and the way that she used to be a leader,” which was “was grounded in integrity, purpose, love,” Jimenez said. “Having a street named after her will honor all of that.”Reflecting on the event, Lopez said: “[It] feels like a dream because so many people came that worked with her in the past.”Despite having to move the event inside to avoid the cold and rain, the crowd of people stayed to celebrate. It “was crowded with people, and our center lobby was filled completely,” Lopez said. “It was just a very festive atmosphere.”He added: “It was really moving to have so many people there from so long ago that still feel it in their hearts, [how] the work here in East Harlem impacted their careers, impacted their lives, and that itʼs still a very significant thing for them,” he said.](https://unitedyam.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/new-york-city-street-renamed-for-religious-sisters-decades-of-service-catholic-a-new-york-city-street-acquired-a-new-name-this-past-weekend-honoring-a-catholic-sisters-decades-of-de-scaled.png)
For 45 years, Sister Susanne Lachapelle made the community of East Harlem her home, helping to spearhead the LSA Family Health Service’s programs to help the most vulnerable.
Archbishop Paul Coakley, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, condemned violence, and Bishop David Bonnar of Youngstown, Ohio said the issue of gun violence must be addressed.
Pope Leo XIV, who is traveling in Africa, sent a message to be read at the Mass commemorating the first anniversary of Pope Francis’ death.
![Christ is not ‘a guru or a good luck charm,’ pope says at Mass in Angola #Catholic SAURIMO, Angola — Pope Leo XIV warned at Mass in Saurimo, Angola, on Monday of making God into an idol that is sought only when advantageous — “when genuine faith is replaced with superstitious practices.”“There are erroneous motives for seeking Christ, particularly when he is considered to be a guru or a good luck charm,” the pope said on April 20, referring to how the crowds in the Gospel reading reacted after Jesus performed the miracle of the loaves and the fishes.“They were not seeking a teacher whom they love but a leader to applaud for their own advantage,” he said.Joyful faith in Saurimo
Pope Leo XIV celebrates Mass in Saurimo, Angola, on April 20, 2026. | Credit: Vatican Media
From the start of his arrival in Sub-Saharan Africa — first in Cameroon and then in Angola — Pope Leo has been welcomed by the warmth of the faithful. In Saurimo, a city in northeastern Angola, the atmosphere greeting the pope on Monday was marked by joyful faith. Everyone welcomed the successor of Peter with songs, dances, and applause.Despite the intense heat, upon reaching the esplanade before Mass, Leo XIV greeted the roughly 60,000 faithful of all ages — who had come from across the region and neighboring dioceses — by making a circuit in the popemobile.“This is the first time a pope has gone beyond Angola’s coastal belt and come — using Pope Francis’ language — to the peripheries,“ the director of the communications office of the Archdiocese of Saurimo said. ”This is a region rich in diamonds, but there is also great poverty, and he comes here to show our reality. For us, having the Holy Father in our region is a great joy.”“This is a unique and unforgettable moment in my life and in the lives of the many pilgrims here today,” Filomena Vunda, who works in the pastoral secretariat of the Archdiocese of Malanje, told ACI Africa, the sister service of EWTN News in Africa, at the Mass.Vunda encouraged non-Catholics in Angola to “keep in mind our African word ‘Ubuntu’: The happiness of others depends on me; my happiness depends solely on the happiness of others.”Ubuntu is an African philosophy about human interconnectedness. It can be translated as “I am because we are.”‘Disciples of Christ’In his homily at Mass, concelebrated by Angolan bishops, Pope Leo said: “In every part of the world, the Church lives as a people who walk as disciples of Christ, our brother and redeemer.”"He, the Risen One, illumines for us the path to the Father and with the strength of the Spirit he sanctifies us so that we may transform our way of life in conformity with his love," the pope said. "This is the good news, the Gospel that courses through our veins like blood, sustaining us on the journey. A journey that has brought me here with you today!”
Pope Leo XIV celebrates Mass in Saurimo, Angola, on April 20, 2026. | Credit: Vatican Media
Commenting on the Gospel of the day, Leo reflected: “Indeed, when the Son of God became man, he performed striking miracles in order to manifest the will of the Father: He made light shine in the darkness by giving sight to the blind, he gave a voice to the oppressed by loosening the tongues of the mute, he slaked our thirst for justice by multiplying bread for the poor and weak. Anyone who heard about these works set out in search of Jesus. At the same time, the Lord looks into our heart and asks us whether we seek him out of gratitude or for our own self-interest, with calculation or with love.”“The Lord himself says,” the pope continued, “‘you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves’ (Jn 6:26). His words reveal the designs of those who do not want to encounter a person but want to consume things. The crowd sees Jesus as means to an end, a provider of services. If he had not given them something to eat, his actions and teachings would not have interested them.”“This happens,” Leo XIV explained, “when genuine faith is replaced with superstitious practices, in which God becomes an idol that is sought only when it is advantageous to us and only for as long as it is. Even the most beautiful gifts of the Lord, which are always for the care of his people, become a pretext, a prize or a bargaining chip, and are misinterpreted by those who receive them.”“How different is Jesus’ attitude toward us,” the pontiff continued. “Yet, he does not reject this insincere search, but encourages its conversion ... Christ calls us to freedom: He does not want servants or clients, rather he seeks brothers and sisters to whom he can totally dedicate himself.”“Therefore,” Leo XIV said, “the admonition that the Lord directs to the crowd is transformed into an invitation: ‘Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life’ (Jn 6:27)."“His gift sheds light on our current situation,” the pope went on. “We can see today how the hope of many people is frustrated by violence, exploited by the powerful, and defrauded by the rich. Consequently, when injustice corrupts hearts, the bread of all becomes the possession of a few."“In the face of these evils, Christ hears the cry of the people and renews our history by lifting us up from every fall, comforting us in every suffering, and encouraging us in our mission," he said.
Crowds of people brave the heat and sun to attend Mass with Pope Leo XIV in Saurimo, Angola, on April 20, 2026. | Credit: Raúl Kangombe Sapiti/ACI Africa
“All this,” the pope exhorted, “means that, in light of our discipleship, the ecclesial journey is a ‘synod of resurrection and hope,’ as St. John Paul II affirmed in his apostolic exhortation Ecclesia in Africa. Let us proceed in this wise direction! Christ himself guides and strengthens our journey, a journey that we want to learn to live more and more as it should be, that is, in a synodal manner.”The pope concluded by recalling the importance of the martyrs and saints, whose witness “encourages us and pushes us onto a path of hope, reconciliation, and peace, along which the gift of God becomes the responsibility of the head of the household, in the Christian community, in civil society.”"The vitality of the vocations that you experience [in Angola]," he said, "is a sign that you are responding to the Lord’s gift, which is always abundant for those who welcome it with pure hearts.”ACI Africa reporter Raúl Kangombe Sapiti contributed to this report.This story was first published by ACI Stampa, the Italian-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.](https://unitedyam.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/christ-is-not-a-guru-or-a-good-luck-charm-pope-says-at-mass-in-angola-catholic-saurimo-angola-pope-leo-xiv-warned-at-mass-in-saurimo-angola-on-monday-of-making-god-int-scaled.jpg)
After praying at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption in Saurimo, Pope Leo XIV proceeded to the site of the Mass, attended by an estimated 60,000 people.
Born on April 20, 1923, Mother Angelica would be turning 103 years old this year. There is nothing she liked better than to share about faith in Jesus Christ.
The pontiff urged the country to reject exploitative models of development and place the common good above particular interests.
The Moon, seen here backlit by the Sun during a solar eclipse on April 6, 2026, is photographed by one of the cameras on the Orion spacecraft’s solar array wings. Orion is visible in the foreground on the left.
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Fishing boats illuminate the Arabian Sea along India’s west coast with green lights designed to attract squid, shrimp, sardines, and mackerel in this nighttime photograph from the International Space Station, orbiting 259 miles above Earth. At lower right, the city lights of Hyderabad—renowned for its historic diamond and pearl trade—stretch westward toward the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, home to over 26 million people and the heart of Bollywood.
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Today is the Feast of Saint James, a day of celebration in the heart of Cesenatico (Italy), with the Leonardo’s Canal Port containing its characteristic historical boats.
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This is the most accurate natural color image of Pluto taken by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft in 2015.
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An image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus at the center of a rose window in Santa Ifigênia Church São Paulo, Brazil. Today is the Feast of the Sacred Heart in the Roman Catholic Church.
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