Devotional items can be seen at the foot of a statue of St. John Paul II outside of Rome's Gemelli hospital where Pope Leo XIV underwent surgery to remove a nodule in his lung Oct. 13, 2026. (CNS/Cristian Gennari)
Vatican News

Pope Leo diagnosed with lung cancer

Vatican

Pope Leo XIV was diagnosed with lung cancer after undergoing a successful lung operation on Tuesday, issuing a seismic shock to the Catholic faithful and altering the image of his 17-month pontificate.

The Latest

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Editors' Choice

U.S. flags are seen among the crowd as Pope Leo XIV greets visitors and pilgrims from the popemobile while riding around St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican before his weekly general audience Oct. 7, 2026. (CNS/Vatican Media)

In Focus

How Pope Leo uses being an American to his advantage

In a new biography of Pope Leo XIV, NPR journalists Daniel Burke and Scott Detrow trace the life of Robert Prevost, whose election as the first American pope has turned conventional wisdom on its head.

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Vatican News

#1
Pope Leo seeks status update of Francis' divisive opening to divorced and remarried Catholics

Church leaders will meet in Rome next week to understand how "The Joy of Love", Pope Francis' 2016 document on divorced and civilly remarried Catholics, has been implemented.

ByNicole Winfield, The Associated Press
Sculptures surround stained glass depicting the Holy Spirit as a dove, by Gian Lorenzo Bernini circa 1660, in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican. (Wikimedia Commons/Dnalor 01)

#2
How do we know if we are listening to the Holy Spirit or only to ourselves?

The Catholic tradition is the catalog of Catholics responding to the Holy Spirit in their own time. It is also a catalog of how previous generations of Christians were often blinded by their cultural circumstances.

ByMichael Sean Winters
Pope Leo XIV

#3
Pope Leo lays groundwork for future conclave by naming Filipino cardinal as dean of cardinals

Pope Leo XIV took a first step Friday to lay the groundwork for the eventual conclave that will elect his successor: He appointed Filipino Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle as the new dean of the College of Cardinals, elevating his profile as a papal contender in the process.

ByNicole Winfield, Associated Press

#4
Pope Leo to undergo surgery to remove lung nodule

#5
Pope Leo urges frank reckoning with Catholic teaching on sex and marriage

#6
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Your letters: US diplomacy, restricting the chalice and the hierarchy

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Letters to the editor: NCR readers respond to stories about multilateralism, diocesan restrictions of the reception of communion under both kinds and the culture of the Roman Catholic hierarchy. 

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French President Emmanuel Macron, right, listens to Pope Leo XIV delivering his speech at the meeting At the Roots of Europe for Peace and Unity, Monday, Sept. 28, 2026, in Metz, France. (AP/Gregorio Borgia)

Leo's emerging style of pastoral leadership

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"In a noisy and confusing culture, Leo's clarity and precision, as well as his obvious authenticity, break through," writes NCR columnist Michael Sean Winters.

Vatican

Devotional items can be seen at the foot of a statue of St. John Paul II outside of Rome's Gemelli hospital where Pope Leo XIV underwent surgery to remove a nodule in his lung Oct. 13, 2026. (CNS/Cristian Gennari)
Vatican News

Pope Leo diagnosed with lung cancer

Pope Leo XIV was diagnosed with lung cancer after undergoing a successful lung operation on Tuesday, issuing a seismic shock to the Catholic faithful and altering the image of his 17-month pontificate.

Archbishop Renzo Pegoraro, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life (NCR photo/Justin McLellan)
Vatican News

Vatican pro-life chief says tech companies should refuse to livestream execution

Archbishop Renzo Pegoraro told National Catholic Reporter Oct. 12 that tech companies have a moral obligation to refuse participation in streaming an upcoming federal execution by firing squad.

ByJustin McLellan
Pope Leo XIV celebrates Mass marking the start of the academic year at the Pontifical Universities in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, Oct. 8, 2026. (OSV News/Reuters/Remo Casilli)
Vatican News

Pope Leo will be hospitalized on Tuesday for lung operation, Vatican says

Pope Leo XIV will be admitted to the hospital on Oct. 13 for surgery to remove a lump found in his lung, the Vatican said, marking a change to the pope's schedule amid his first health scare as pope.

ByJustin McLellan
Pope Leo XIV is seen after the Angelus prayer in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican Sept. 13, 2026. After the Angelus on Oct. 11, he announced that he would undergo surgery to remove a lung nodule. (OSV News photo/Matteo Pernaselci, Vatican Media)

Pope Leo to undergo surgery to remove lung nodule

The pope's operation will take place early this coming week at Rome's Gemelli hospital, where the popes typically receive medical care, and he is expected to remain in recovery for a week, the Vatican said. 

ByJustin McLellan

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EarthBeat

Pope Leo XIV celebrates a Mass at the Borgo Laudato Si' center in Castel Gandolfo, Italy, Sept. 1, 2026, marking the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation. (OSV News/Vatican Media/Mario Tomassetti)

Sustainability award bearing Pope Leo's name spotlights his own environmental record

The new Pope Leo Sustainability Medal, created by Villanova University, puts a spotlight not just on its inaugural recipient but on how Leo has situated environmental concern for the church during his papacy so far.

Gas prices are displayed at an Exxon station ahead of the Memorial Day weekend in Great Neck, N.Y., May 22, 2026. (OSV News/Reuters/Shannon Stapleton)
Guest Voices

President Trump is both attacking green energy and helping it

Before the war with Iran, the world was moving to green energy because it was cheaper. Now it is a stampede, impelled by both economics and national security.

ByThomas Reese, Religion News Service
The Salmon River, located in the mountains of east-central Idaho (Nikolas Dahmen)

A spotted sandpiper dances as I birdwatch with Kierkegaard

The Danish Christian thinker Søren Kierkegaard envisioned birds as teachers worthy of our attention. What can birdwatching teach us about joy?

ByNikolas Dahmen
Daughters of Divine Love Srs. Mary Calisata Iwuji and Jacinta Nwankwo pose for a photo in front of the diocesan clinic in Ezza-Nkwubor Nike, a remote village in Enugu State, southeast Nigeria. (Patrick Egwu)

Nigerian sisters minister amid inaccessible roads and flood disasters

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Culture

The off-Broadway musical "Night Side Songs" is performed at the Lincoln Center's Claire Tow Theater in 2026. (Marc J. Franklin)

Off-Broadway show about cancer invites audience into healing liturgy

How do we mourn the people we have lost? Live with the wounds we've endured? Face the specters of mortality that haunt us? In "Night Side Songs," the Lazours reveal how much can be accomplished together, and in song.

JoAnn Falletta, music director for the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, will conduct "Francis: An Oratorio in Nine Scenes" Oct. 10 and 11. The oratorio brings together music composed by Richard Danielpour and a Fransiscan-inspired libretto by Franciscan Sr. Margaret Carney. (Steve J. Sherman)

St. Francis' messages shared through music at oratorio debut

Franciscan Sr. Margaret Carney wrote the libretto for "Francis: An Oratorio in Nine Scenes." Performances with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra are set for Oct. 10 and 11.

ByJulie A. Ferraro
Brandi Carlile (right) performs with Monique Ross (far left) and Chauntee Ross of SistaStrings during the 55th annual Songwriters Hall of Fame Induction and Awards Gala at the Marriott Marquis Hotel on Thursday, June 11, 2026, in New York. (AP/Invision/Evan Agostini)

Finding communion at a Brandi Carlile concert

After a Brandi Carlile concert, and with her own son learning an instrument, one mother reflects on the holiness of sharing a collective experience with other human beings.

ByBritt Luby
A crowd gathers in the square in front of the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris on Aug. 26, 1944, awaiting the arrival of Gen. Charles de Gaulle after Paris was liberated from the Germans. (Wikimedia Commons/CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain/Préfecture de Police)

As Pope Leo heads to Notre Dame, a brief history of the cathedral's cultural relevance

When the pope visits the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris this week, he'll see a church that has stood as a religious and cultural French landmark for nearly 900 years. 

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St. Joseph of the Apparition Sr. Muna Totah dances at a festival that brought together youth from Galilee and youth from the St. James Vicariate in Jerusalem in October 2025. (Courtesy of St. James Vicariate)

Q&A with Sr. Muna Totah, bridging divides in a Jewish-Arab-Catholic city in Israel

Totah serves as director of a Sister of St. Joseph of the Apparition school with Arab students and works with the youth of the Hebrew-speaking Catholic community in the St. James Vicariate. 

The Ste. Genevieve County Sheriff's Office and Detention Center March 7, 2026, in Ste. Genevieve, Mo. The facility also serves as an ICE detention center. (OSV News/St. Louis Review/Jacob Wiegand)

Monday Starter: St. Joseph Sisters stand against ICE, defend sacraments for detainees

Plus, a sister in Argentina is sentenced to 20 years for abusing hearing-impaired children, and the Sisters of St. Martha in Canada give up the hospital the congregation founded.

ByDan Stockman
Sr. Indra Monterroso Padilla, of the Bethlemite Sisters, Daughters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, lights a candle with laywoman Martha Calderon at a chapel in El Paraíso, El Salvador, where women religious and laywomen gathered Sept. 12, 2026, to keep the work of the synod alive. (GSR photo/Rhina Guidos)

Catholic sisters and laywomen lead efforts to put synodality into practice in El Salvador

"As women, we don't walk alone; together we shape history to help other women find freedom and build community," Sr. Ivania Blandón Montenegro said. "Synodality is exactly that."

ByRhina Guidos
Children are served their school meal at a school in India in this 2017 photograph. (OSV News/Courtesy Mary's Meals)
Voices of Sisters

Nations of the world have forgotten responsibility toward the less privileged

The global world is becoming less accountable. We are losing our ethos as nations who once reached out as a moral responsibility to the less privileged.

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