Pope Leo XIV sends a message to the 17th International Forum for Information for the Safeguard of Nature, promoted by GreenAccord, and encourages participants to work together to care for creation “through sustainable development research projects.”

Read all

 

Church representatives and indigenous rights activists launch a global platform for divestment from mining activities that affect local communities in Latin America.

Read all

 

At the GreenAccord Forum, researcher Krzysztof Szadejko highlights how climate awareness among young people is increasingly linked to uncertainty, fear, and a lack of long-term planning.

Read all

 

The Pope meets with King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia at the Apostolic Palace before the monarchs made their way to the Basilica of Saint Mary Major, where the king was granted the title of Protocanon of the Chapter of the Liberian Basilica.

Read all

 

The bishops of Rwanda and Burundi, gathered under the umbrella body of the Association of Bishops of Rwanda and Burundi (ACOREB), have resolved to implement the Global and African Educational Pacts in Catholic schools of both countries. They reached this decision at the end of their recent plenary meeting in Kigali, Rwanda.

Read all

 

The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors concludes its Spring Assembly, reaffirming safeguarding as central to the Church’s mission under the leadership of Pope Leo XIV.

Read all

 

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Once a young teenager wearing a cap and gown for his eighth-grade graduation photo in Chicago, today the famous former-student posed for a reunion picture wearing his papal zucchetto and cassock at the Vatican.

Pope Leo XIV, who graduated from the lower school of St. Mary of the Assumption on the city's South Side in 1969, greeted and reminisced with 10 of his 82 former classmates after the general audience in St. Peter's Square March 18.

"Sorry! I'm nervous," laughed Sherry Stone (née Blue) after a small sign saying, "God bless you Pope Leo," slipped from her grasp when she reached out to shake the hand of her former classmate -- Robert F. Prevost.

The pope proudly held up their old graduation photo as they posed for another photo together, almost 60 years later.

"Here he is, our friend, the pope," Jerome Clemens told the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, pointing to the black-and-white image of the 13-year-old Prevost. Clemens then showed the back of the class photo with Prevost's old autograph and his new one that was signed, "Leo XIV." 

Among the small gifts they brought was the 2025 fall issue of "Air Chicago," a color magazine produced for passengers coming through Chicago's O'Hare and Midway airports, whose cover story was the election of a pope from Chicago.

The group came to Rome and the general audience to show their camaraderie and embrace once again their former classmate -- now the 266th successor of St. Peter, the newspaper reported.

John Riggio told the newspaper about the close-knit atmosphere at the school, saying it was more like a family.

In fact, the pope's mother, Mildred Agnes Prevost, worked there as a librarian and was also actively involved with the school and parish, Stone said. 

She told The Lansing Journal last May, right after her classmate's election by the College of Cardinals, that she had remembered him making a comment when they were young, "that he wanted to grow up to be pope."

"When he was in the conclave, I thought, 'Could it be him? Could Bob be the new pope? No, probably not,'" Stone had told the Journal. "When I saw that it was him, I was just amazed. I was crying tears of joy."

She had said he was kind, humble and well-liked by his classmates. "He was a super nice guy, but not nerdy."

Following his middle school graduation, Prevost went on to attend the Augustinians' St. Augustine Seminary High School near Saugatuck, Michigan, where he graduated in 1973, followed by enrolling in Villanova University, an Augustinian college located near Philadelphia, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics in 1977.
 

The Preacher of the Papal Household, Fr. Roberto Pasolini, delivers his third Lenten meditation to the Roman Curia, with Pope Leo in attendance, on "The mission: proclaiming the Gospel to every creature."

Read all

 

Archbishop Ettore Balestrero, Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations and Other International Organizations in Geneva, insists that persons with Down syndrome possess the same dignity and sacred value as any other person, and underscores that "discriminatory and eugenic practices linked to prenatal screening and the selective termination of pregnancies targeting babies diagnosed with Down syndrome must be firmly rejected."

Read all

 

The Ecclesial Conference of the Amazonia renews its presidency for the 2026–2030 period, consolidating a synodal ecclesial path in which diverse vocations, ministries, and cultures converge at the service of life in the Amazon Region.

Read all