Pope Leo XIV talks with his personal physician, Luigi Carbone, as the pontiff arrives at Rome's Gemelli Hospital Oct. 13, 2026, ahead of his surgery that afternoon. (OSV News/Reuters/Guglielmo Mangiapane)
Vatican News

Pope Leo up and walking after surgery, but status of cancer unclear

Vatican

Pope Leo XIV continues to recover from surgery to remove a tumor in his lung, the Vatican said, but no further details about tests to determine the status of his cancer were provided.

The Latest

Trump revives baseless claims about Haitian migrants in Ohio while touting deportations

Kate Scanlon, OSV News

Prayers, well-wishes pour in after pope's lung cancer diagnosis

Junno Arocho Esteves, Paulina Guzik, OSV News

Cardinal Tagle reads Pope Leo's homily to bishops: 'The world has no future without strong families'

Courtney Mares, OSV News

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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Most Read Stories

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
Podcast: 'Catholicism has something vital to learn from other religious traditions,' says Cyprian Consiglio

Opinion

In age of AI, theological education more important than ever

Guest Voices

President Trump is both attacking green energy and helping it

Guest Voices
Pope Leo XIV blesses a Bible dedicated to married couples at the Vatican after his weekly general audience June 4, 2025. (CNS/Vatican Media)

10 years of 'Amoris Laetitia': What Chapter 8 changed

Guest Voices

Ten years later, the lesson of Chapter 8 is clear: The church does not become less faithful when she discerns, but when she ceases to do so, Rafael Luciani writes.

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

Letters to the Editor

Blue wave is rising in Senate races

NCR Voices
Loreto Sr. Wamuyu Wachira speaks during an event to inaugurate the Catholic Institute for Nonviolence at the Istituto Maria Bambina in Rome Sept. 29, 2024. (CNS/Justin McLellan)

Podcast: 'Beatitudes should be part of our DNA,' says Pax Christi's Sr. Wamuyu Wachira

Guest Voices

On this week's episode of "The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast," John Dear hosts Loreto Sr. Wamuyu Wachira, co-president of Pax Christi International.

Vatican

Prayers, well-wishes pour in after pope's lung cancer diagnosis

Church and world leaders offered prayers and wishes for a speedy recovery to Pope Leo XIV following the Vatican's announcement that he was diagnosed with lung cancer after undergoing surgery to remove part of his right lung.

Pope Leo XIV talks with his personal physician, Luigi Carbone, as the pontiff arrives at Rome's Gemelli Hospital Oct. 13, 2026, ahead of his surgery that afternoon. (OSV News/Reuters/Guglielmo Mangiapane)
Vatican News

Pope Leo up and walking after surgery, but status of cancer unclear

Pope Leo XIV continues to recover from surgery to remove a tumor in his lung, the Vatican said, but no further details about tests to determine the status of his cancer were provided.

ByJustin McLellan

Cardinal Tagle reads Pope Leo's homily to bishops: 'The world has no future without strong families'

Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, the newly elected dean of the College of Cardinals, presided over the closing Mass Oct. 14 for the Vatican's meeting on marriage and family, delivering a homily Pope Leo XIV had prepared before undergoing surgery for newly diagnosed lung cancer.

ByCourtney Mares, OSV News
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.

ByJustin McLellan

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Vatican News

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

Vatican News

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

Pope Leo to undergo surgery to remove lung nodule

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

A hospital run by the Daughters of Divine Love faces challenges from heavy rains and floods, which have damaged sections of the road leading to their community.

ByPatrick Egwu

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Supreme Court hears key climate change lawsuit, but procedural question remains

Farming, faith and 'real synodality': How this Catholic couple lives Laudato Si'

For nuns in war-torn Cameroon, conflict threatens hard-won climate solutions

Culture

Gerwig and Colbert

'Narnia' director Greta Gerwig unveils trailer with sincerity amid controversy

Gerwig received some backlash for choosing Meryl Streep to voice Aslan in her upcoming adaptation of The Magician's Nephew, but when she gathered with journalists Oct. 12 to unveil the trailer, that controversy seemed far away.

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.

ByJim McDermott
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

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

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

How Fulton Sheen paved the way for American acceptance of Catholics

Book Reviews

Stephanie Sy-Quia's debut novel paints forbidden love against Vatican II backdrop

Sister Veronica, a member of the Little Sisters of St. Francis, shows a representative of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation produce from the Divine Mercy Green Farm her order operates in Nakuru, Kenya. (CNS/Handout, Missio Invest, Pontifical Missionary Societies in the United States)
Voices of Sisters

At work on the last mile: Catholic sisters are local leaders in development

As global aid declines, Catholic sisters offer a powerful lesson in sustainable development: Lasting change is built on trust, local leadership, and the people who remain long after funding ends.

Apostolic Carmel Sr. Maria Nirmalini, the head of the Conference of Women Religious India, meets with Abhijeet Dipke, the leader of the Gen Z movement in India, at a protest rally at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi, on July 23. (Courtesy of Maria Nirmalini)

Catholic nuns support India's youth struggles for educational reform

"We stand with the youth in their fight for justice," said Sr. Maria Nirmalini, leader of India's more than 100,000 Catholic nuns

ByThomas Scaria
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. 

ByJudith Sudilovsky
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

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

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

Nations of the world have forgotten responsibility toward the less privileged

For one Catholic sister, communication becomes a missionary vocation