St. Maria Goretti Parish

Pope Leo XIV greets a group of young people aboard the “Med 25 Bel Espoir” moored in the Port of Ostia, praising their efforts to promote dialogue and understanding across cultures, religions, and nationalities and thanking them for being witnesses of hope.

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WASHINGTON – “Though we are grateful that aspects of the Administration’s policies announced Thursday intend to include comprehensive and holistic restorative reproductive medicine, which can help ethically to address infertility and its underlying causes, we strongly reject the promotion of procedures like IVF that instead freeze or destroy precious human beings and treat them like property,” said Bishop Robert E. Barron, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth; Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades, chairman of the Committee for Religious Liberty; and Bishop Daniel E. Thomas, chairman of the Committee on Pro-Life Activities.

Responding to the White House’s announcement of new actions to expand access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) and fertility treatments, the bishops continued, “Every human life, born and preborn, is sacred and loved by God. Without diminishing the dignity of people born through IVF, we must recognize that children have a right to be born of a natural and exclusive act of married love, rather than a business’s technological intervention. And harmful government action to expand access to IVF must not also push people of faith to be complicit in its evils.

“We will continue to review these new policies, and look forward to engaging further with the Administration and Congress, always proclaiming the sanctity of life and of marriage.”

The policies announced Thursday were pursuant to an executive order issued in February. A statement of Bishops Barron and Thomas responding to that order may be read here.

For more on assisted reproductive technology, including in vitro fertilization, please see: https://www.usccb.org/prolife/reproductive-technology. For more information on infertility, ethical restorative reproductive medicine, and research to address its root causes, please see: https://www.usccb.org/topics/natural-family-planning/infertility.

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WASHINGTON – The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has announced Carol Glatz as Editor in Chief of Catholic News Service in Rome. USCCB General Secretary, Father Michael J.K. Fuller, made the appointment, which takes effect on January 1, 2026. 

The news follows the announcement of the retirement of Cindy Wooden who has led the Rome office of Catholic News Service since 2015, first as Bureau Chief and, since 2023, as Editor in Chief. As a veteran journalist covering the Catholic Church, Ms. Wooden’s career has spanned the pontificates of Saint John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI, Pope Francis, and Pope Leo XIV. 

Ms. Glatz has spent nearly three decades in Catholic journalism, covering the Vatican and the global Church since 1998 for Vatican Radio, and since 2004 for Catholic News Service.

“On behalf of the bishops, I would like to thank Cindy for her long-time service to the Church. Her distinguished career as a Catholic journalist has taken her from a state-side reporter for a diocesan newspaper, to the D.C. newsroom of Catholic News Service, and then to Rome to cover the Holy Father and the Vatican. She will be missed, and we wish her well in retirement,” said Father Fuller. “I’m equally thankful to have Carol continue the good work that Cindy has led in a continuation of Catholic News Service’s mission to invite Catholics in the United States closer to the ministry of the Pope,” he continued. 

“I’m grateful for this opportunity to build upon the long-time presence and trusted relationships that Cindy and my colleagues at Catholic News Service have built over the years,” said Ms. Glatz. “I look forward to leading the news team here in Rome as we tackle the challenges posed by changes in the way people get their news. Together, we will report through digital media and creative story packages to keep the Catholic faithful informed and engaged with news about Pope Leo and the Holy See.” 

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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Leo XIV traveled 23 miles by car to board the "Bel Espoir" sailboat and speak to the crew about peacemaking.

The boat, whose name means "beautiful hope," had spent the previous eight months sailing to 30 Mediterranean ports where rotating crews of 25 young adults met their peers and talked about their faith and the challenges to peace.

Meeting the last crew Oct. 17 at the marina in Ostia, outside of Rome, Pope Leo told them the world needs "signs, witness, impressions that give hope." 

The name of the boat and, even more, the efforts of the young people "are indeed a sign of hope for the Mediterranean and the world," he told them.

Living and working together on the boat, the pope said, has taught them the importance of dialogue.

"How important it is to learn to talk to one another, to sit down, to learn to listen, to express your own ideas and your own values with respect for one another" so that others also feel they were heard, he said.

Eight groups of 25 young adults from different Mediterranean countries and different religions each spent a month as part of the crew and held roundtable discussions on different themes with young adults in the 30 ports of call.

The experience, the pope said, should have reinforced for them the importance of "building bridges," not literally, "but a bridge among all of us, peoples from many different nations."

Pope Leo said he had asked each member of the crew where they were from, which made it obvious that despite big differences in language, faith and culture, the young adults still made life aboard work. 

Living on a relatively small boat with a large group of people, he said, "you have to learn how to live with one another and how to respect one another, and how to work out the difficulties, and that too is a great experience for all of you as young people, but (also) something that you can teach all of us."

Noting that the crew included several Palestinians, Pope Leo told the group that it is especially important to learn "to be promoters of peace in a world that more and more tends to go toward violence and hatred and separation and distance and polarization."

The young people can show the world that "we can come together, even though we are from different countries, we have different languages, different cultures, different religions, and yet we are all human beings." 

"We all sons and daughters of the one God," he said. "We are all living together on this world, and we all have a shared responsibility to together care for creation and care for one another and to promote peace throughout the world."

Pope Leo also told the crew that he had been to Ostia many times as an Augustinian friar because of the port town's close connection to the story of St. Augustine and, especially, his mother, St. Monica.

In fact, St. Monica died in Ostia in 387 while waiting for St. Augustine to join her for the return journey to North Africa. She was buried there, but her remains were moved to Rome in the 15th century.

 

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