St. Maria Goretti Parish

WASHINGTON – Pope Leo XIV has accepted the resignation of Most Reverend W. Michael Mulvey, 76, from the pastoral governance of the Diocese of Corpus Christi, and has appointed Most Reverend Mario A. Avilés, CO, currently auxiliary bishop of Brownsville, as his successor. 

The appointment was publicized in Washington, D.C. on December 1, 2025, by Cardinal Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the United States.

The Diocese of Corpus Christi is comprised of 10,951 square miles in the State of Texas and has a total population of 582,684, of which 209,726, are Catholic.

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Sister Mary Youssef, Secretary General of the Franciscan Sisters of the Cross who run the Psychiatric Hospital of the Cross in Lebanon, talks about the joy of the sisters in welcoming Pope Leo XIV’s visit to the medical center on December 2.

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During a meeting with bishops, priests, consecrated men and women, and pastoral workers at the Shrine of Our Lady of Lebanon in Harissa, Pope Leo XIV highlights coexistence, education, and support for migrants as concrete paths toward peace.

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Despite the rain, crowds with flags and umbrellas welcome Pope Leo XIV at the Monastery of St. Maron in Annaya, the resting place of St. Charbel Makhlouf - "a saint that represents Lebanon."

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On the second day of his Apostolic Visit to Lebanon, Pope Leo XIV visits the tomb of St. Charbel, saying he taught “prayer to those who live without God, silence to those who live amid noise ... and poverty to those who pursue riches.”

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Pope Leo XIV makes a 30-minute visit to the Carmelite Sisters of the Theotokos in Harissa, on the evening of his first day in Lebanon.

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Pope Leo XIV concludes his Apostolic Journey to Türkiye with a visit to the Armenian Apostolic Cathedral of Istanbul and Divine Liturgy with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew.

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Pope Leo XIV meets with Lebanese civil authorities in Beirut as he begins his Apostolic Journey to Lebanon, urging the country's young people to speak “the language of hope,” which he said has enabled Lebanon “always to start again.”

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ISTANBUL (CNS) -- As he had done throughout his visit to Turkey, Pope Leo XIV spent his last morning in the country reaffirming the Catholic Church's commitment to the search for Christian unity.

The key symbol of that was the pope's presence at the Divine Liturgy celebrated by Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople Nov. 30, the feast of St. Andrew, patron of the patriarchate.

For decades the popes and patriarchs have sent delegations to each other's patronal feast celebrations -- the Vatican's celebration of the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul June 29 and the patriarchate's celebration of St. Andrew's feast Nov. 30.

St. Peter and St. Andrew were brothers and were the first of the 12 Apostles to be called by Jesus.

After the liturgy, the pope and patriarch went to a balcony where they jointly blessed the people gathered below. 

Patriarch Bartholomew had been present at most of the events on Pope Leo's itinerary in Turkey, including the meeting in Ankara Nov. 27 with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and government and civic officials. The patriarch hosted the commemoration of the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea Nov. 28, and he attended Pope Leo's Mass for the country's Catholic communities Nov. 29.

At the liturgy Nov. 30 in the Patriarchal Cathedral of St. George, Pope Leo spoke about how for 60 years Catholics and Orthodox have followed "a path of reconciliation, peace and growing communion." 

The increasingly cordial relations have been "fostered through frequent contact, fraternal meetings and promising theological dialogue," he said. "And today we are called even more to commit ourselves to the restoration of full communion."

Especially important work has been done by the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, the pope said, but he noted that tensions among the Orthodox churches have led some of them to suspend their participation.

The commission's last plenary session was held in Egypt in 2023; the most noticeable absence was that of the Russian Orthodox Church, which broke relations with the Ecumenical Patriarchate in 2018 when the patriarch recognized the autonomy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

Pope Leo used his greeting at the Divine Liturgy to confirm that, "in continuity with the teaching of the Second Vatican Council and my predecessors," the pursuit of full communion among Christians "is one of the priorities of the Catholic Church. In particular, it is one of the priorities of my ministry as Bishop of Rome, whose specific role in the universal Church is to be at the service of all, building and safeguarding communion and unity."

In his homily at the liturgy, Patriarch Bartholomew restated the Orthodox commitment to unity and called for common Christian efforts to protect the environment and to end wars.

"We cannot be complicit in the bloodshed taking place in Ukraine and other parts of the world and remain silent in the face of the exodus of Christians from the cradle of Christianity" in the Holy Land, the patriarch said. 

Pope Leo's day had begun with a visit to Archbishop Sahak II Mashalian, the Armenian Apostolic patriarch of Constantinople, at his cathedral in Istanbul.

The celebrations of the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea and its statement of faith that formed the basis of the Nicene Creed, are an affirmation that "we must draw from this shared apostolic faith in order to recover the unity that existed in the early centuries between the Church of Rome and the ancient Oriental Churches," the pope said.

"We must also take inspiration from the experience of the early church in order to restore full communion," he said; the goal is "a communion which does not imply absorption or domination, but rather an exchange of the gifts received by our churches from the Holy Spirit for the glory of God the Father and the edification of the body of Christ."

While Pope Leo paid tribute to "the courageous Christian witness of the Armenian people throughout history, often amid tragic circumstances," he was not more explicit about the politically sensitive subject of what many call the "Armenian genocide," when an estimated 1.5 million Armenians killed by Ottoman Turks in 1915-18.

Mardik Evadian, a local business owner who was present for the pope's visit, told reporters that for Armenians in Turkey "it is not important" that the pope use the word "genocide."

Armenians know what happened and remember their loved ones who were killed, he said, "but we are living in this country; maybe in old times there were pogroms, but now it is peacetime."
 

Aboard the papal plane flying from Istanbul to Beirut, Pope Leo XIV thanks Türkiye’s authorities for their welcome and answers a pair of questions from reporters, expressing his hopes for peace in Ukraine and Gaza and confirming the desire to celebrate the 2033 Jubilee of Redemption in Jerusalem.

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