St. Maria Goretti Parish

Ann Carter, age 69, who served as a Consultor to the Dicastery for Communication, has passed away. She leaves a legacy of deep faith, professional excellence, and personal warmth, and will be greatly missed by all who knew her.

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Pope Leo XIV issues a brief statement to journalists in Castel Gandolfo, renewing his appeal to “work for peace, not with weapons,” and denouncing the rise in hatred, violence, and death.

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The United Nations Children's Fund appeals for an end to the violence in the Middle East and unimpeded humanitarian access to assist over 1.2 million displaced children in Iran and Lebanon. The humanitarian organization warns that a generation of children is being pulled deeper into crisis and paying a devastating price.

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“Children with disabilities deserve the same care, respect and opportunities as every other child in society. Serving them has revealed the meaning of my vocation and the joy of ministering to others,” said Sr. Rosemary Ombay, the assistant director of Siuyu Rehabilitation Centre.

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WASHINGTON - Today, the inaugural meeting was held for the Evangelical-Catholic Dialogue on Immigration (ECDI), an ecumenical undertaking of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and National Association of Evangelicals (NAE). 

The ECDI is being co-chaired by Bishop Brendan J. Cahill, chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Migration, and Reverend Walter Kim, president of the NAE. In addition to the co-chairs, the ECDI is comprised of five members from each tradition, as well as organizational observers. 

The initiative builds on a long history of collaboration between the USCCB and NAE, including a joint report released one year ago on the possible impacts of a policy of mass deportation on Christian families living in the United States. Since the release of that report, Catholic and evangelical leaders have grappled with many of the same pastoral challenges related to ongoing immigration enforcement efforts, such as an increase in fear and anxiety among members of their congregations. The USCCB and NAE have both addressed these issues separately.   

In describing the effort, Bishop Cahill stated: 

“I view the ECDI as a means of growing in Christian unity with our evangelical brothers and sisters, while also furthering our shared goal of bringing the message of the Gospel to bear on one of the most pressing issues of our time. Whatever theological differences exist between us, Catholics and evangelicals across our country are navigating many of the same complex realities—political and social—and the issue of immigration is an important example. Together, we place our hope in Jesus Christ, and we seek to live out his teaching in relation to this challenging topic. 

“Our Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV, has emphasized dialogue as the key to peace, understanding, and fraternity, especially between different faith traditions. In seeking to live that out through the ECDI, I am deeply grateful to my co-chair, Reverend Kim, for his leadership and willingness to collaborate in this way and for the commitment of all those participating.”

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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Leo XIV advanced the sainthood cause of Father Edward Flanagan, the Irish-born founder of a pioneering home for at-risk boys in the United States, recognizing that he lived the Christian virtues heroically.

The Vatican announced March 23 that the pope authorized the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints to promulgate the decree, a key step on the path to sainthood.

Born in 1886 in Ballymoe, Ireland, Father Flanagan immigrated to the United States, first moving to New York. He contracted double pneumonia during his first year of seminary and due to "weak lungs," doctors told him he would have to leave for at least a year, according to the Father Flanagan League Society of Devotion website. 

He moved to Omaha to live with his brother, who was also a priest and his sister, who was his housekeeper. He was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Omaha. Initially working with men who were experiencing homelessness, Father Flanagan became convinced that the roots of homelessness often began in childhood and could be addressed early in life.

“There are no bad boys,” he said. “There is only bad environment, bad training, bad example, bad thinking.”

In 1917, he founded Boys Town near Omaha, Nebraska, creating a community for orphaned and at-risk boys that broke with the traditional model of reform schools and orphanages. The village included its own student-run government and civic structures, along with nationally recognized music and sports programs.

Father Flanagan was also known for his forward-looking commitment to racial and religious inclusion. He welcomed Jewish and Black youths at a time of widespread segregation, drawing threats from the Ku Klux Klan, and insisted that boys of different faiths be free to pray according to their traditions.

During World War II, he opposed the internment of Japanese Americans and provided housing for nearly 200 displaced Japanese-Americans at Boys Town. 

Father Flanagan died in 1948 in Berlin. Today, Boys Town now welcomes girls, and it has expanded across the states, including in Florida, Iowa and New York.

His work gained national attention in the 1938 film “Boys Town,” with Spencer Tracy winning an Academy Award for his portrayal of the priest.

In the same Vatican announcement, Pope Leo XIV also recognized the heroic virtues of Father Henri Caffarel, founder of the Équipes Notre-Dame movement; Sister Barbara Stanislava Samulowska, a member of the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul; Spanish Sister Maria of Bethlehem of the Heart of Jesus Romero Algarín, a member of the Congregation of the Handmaids of the Divine Heart; and Giuseppe Castagnetti, a 20th century Italian layman and father.

The pope also approved a decree recognizing "the offering of life" of Cardinal Ludovico Altieri, a 19th-century bishop of Albano, Italy. The "offering of life" (oblatio vitae) category indicates a candidate who heroically offered his life out of loving service to others. He died in 1867 after coming to the aid of his parishioners, administering the sacraments and running emergency care during a severe cholera epidemic in Albano. 

The Catholic Church recognizes several paths in sainthood causes. Most commonly, a candidate is declared “venerable” after the recognition that a Servant of God heroically lived a life of Christian virtues. A miracle attributed to the candidate's intercession is normally required for beatification, with a second miracle needed for canonization. 

Martyrs, those killed out of hatred for the faith, may be beatified without a miracle.

The third, less common way, is called an equivalent or equipollent canonization: when there is evidence of strong devotion among the faithful to a holy man or woman, the pope can waive a lengthy formal canonical investigation and can authorize their veneration as saints.

In 2017, Pope Francis introduced a new, fourth pathway to sainthood, known as the “offering of life,” recognizing those who freely gave their lives for others; it also requires a miracle for beatification.

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.
 

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- All baptized Christians share in the Church's mission and, guided by the Holy Spirit, are fit for renewing and building up the Church, Pope Leo XIV said at his weekly general audience.

Every person who has been baptized is called to bear witness to Christ, and the whole Church, beyond its leaders, has a role in preserving the truth of the faith, the pope said March 18 in St. Peter's Square.

Continuing his series of reflections on the Second Vatican Council, the pope focused on the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church ("Lumen Gentium"), and the participation of the lay faithful in Jesus Christ's "priestly, prophetic and royal offices," that is, the offices of teaching, sanctifying and governing.

Everyone enters the Church as a layperson, he said. Through Baptism and Confirmation, the faithful are "more perfectly bound to the Church" and are endowed "with special strength" by the Holy Spirit, so that they are "more strictly obliged to spread and defend the faith, both by word and by deed, as true witnesses of Christ," he said, quoting the document.

"This consecration is at the root of the common mission that unites the ordained ministries and the lay faithful," Pope Leo said. In fact, everyone is called to bear witness to the truth of the faith. 

The Doctrinal Commission of the Council specified that the sense of faith "belongs to individual believers not in their own right, but as members of the People of God as a whole," the pope said.

The function of the Holy Spirit is to lead Christians to the truth, and because the entire body of the faithful is anointed by "the holy one," he said, "the Church, therefore, as the communion of the faithful -- which naturally includes the pastors -- cannot err in matters of faith."

"From this unity, which the Magisterium of the Church safeguards, it follows that every baptized person is an active agent of evangelization, called to bear consistent witness to Christ in accordance with the prophetic gift which the Lord bestows upon His whole Church," he said. 

The Holy Spirit, who comes from the Risen Christ, he said, distributes"special graces" among all the faithful, who are then able to contribute to the renewal and building of the Church. 

"Dear friends, let us rekindle in ourselves the awareness of and gratitude for having received the gift of being part of God’s people; and also the responsibility that this entails," he said.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Marking the two weeks since the U.S. and Israel launched their first attacks on Iran and since the Israeli military resumed strikes in Lebanon, Pope Leo XIV called for an immediate ceasefire.

"On behalf of the Christians of the Middle East, and of all women and men of good will, I appeal to those responsible for this conflict: cease fire!" he said March 15. 

"May paths of dialogue be reopened! Violence can never lead to the justice, stability and peace for which the people are waiting," he said after praying the Angelus with people gathered in St. Peter's Square.

"For two weeks now, the people of the Middle East have been suffering the horrific violence of war," the pope said. "Thousands of innocent people have been killed, and countless others have been forced to flee their homes. I renew my prayerful closeness to all who have lost loved ones in the attacks, which have struck schools, hospitals and residential areas."

"The situation in Lebanon is a cause for great concern," he added. "I hope that avenues for dialogue will emerge to support the country’s authorities in implementing lasting solutions to the serious crisis currently unfolding, for the common good of all the Lebanese people." 

The next day, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called Pope Leo about the "alarming developments in the conflict in the Middle East and the living conditions of the Palestinian people," according to a communique released by the Vatican press office.

"During the conversation, the Holy Father reaffirmed the Holy See's commitment to achieving peace through political and diplomatic dialogue, as well as through full respect for international law," the press office said.
 

ROME (CNS) -- Believing problems and differences can be resolved with war is absurd, Pope Leo XIV said, chastising those who use God's name in their dark and deadly pursuits.

"God cannot be enlisted by darkness," he said in his homily during Mass in a parish on the outskirts of Rome March 15. "Rather, he always comes to bring light, hope and peace to humanity, and it is peace that must be sought by those who call upon him."

The pope was making his fifth and final visit to parishes in his Diocese of Rome in the run-up to Palm Sunday, which falls on March 29. 

Earlier, the pope had prayed the Angelus with those gathered in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, where he made an urgent appeal for a ceasefire in the Middle East.

"I appeal to those responsible for this conflict: cease fire!" he said after the noonday prayer. "May paths of dialogue be reopened! Violence can never lead to the justice, stability and peace for which the people are waiting."

Marking the two weeks since the U.S. and Israel launched their first attacks on Iran and since the Israeli military resumed strikes in Lebanon, Pope Leo said the people in the Middle East "have been suffering the horrific violence of war."

"Thousands of innocent people have been killed, and countless others have been forced to flee their homes. I renew my prayerful closeness to all who have lost loved ones in the attacks, which have struck schools, hospitals and residential areas," he said. 

Expressing his deep concern for the situation in Lebanon, the pope said he hoped that the country’s authorities would be supported through dialogue "in implementing lasting solutions to the serious crisis currently unfolding, for the common good of all the Lebanese people."

Later in the day, the pope visited the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus on the northeast edge of Rome to celebrate Mass with members of the local community on "Laetare" Sunday, the fourth Sunday of Lent.

In his homily, the pope noted the meaning of "laetare" is "rejoice" with the anticipation of Easter.

However, he said, so many of "our brothers and sisters around the world are suffering because of violent conflicts, sparked by the absurd notion that problems and differences can be resolved through war."

"Some even go so far as to invoke God’s name in these choices of death," he said. What is needed is "unceasing dialogue for peace."

"This is the message of this Sunday: no matter how deep the abyss into which a person may fall because of their sins, Christ comes to bring a brighter light, capable of freeing them from the blindness of evil, so that they may begin a new life," he said in his homily. 

Pope Leo praised the parish, community leaders and volunteers for all they do to be "children of light" by serving the poor, the marginalized, immigrants, the exploited and inmates of the nearby Rebibbia prison.

Meeting with parish members outside together with young people and families, he said they are "a sign of hope in a world where pain, suffering and difficulties are often too great."

In his homily, he told the faithful to nurture God's gift of light "in all its gentleness, and spread it throughout the world through prayer, participation in the sacraments and charity."

Before praying the Angelus at noon, Pope Leo said faith is an invitation to open one's eyes to see "the suffering of others and the afflictions of the world."

Given so many "questions of the human heart, as well as the tragic situations of injustice, violence and suffering that mark our time, it is essential that our faith be alert, attentive and prophetic," he said.

"It should likewise open our eyes to the darkness of the world and bring to others the light of the Gospel through our commitment to peace, justice and solidarity," he said. May the light of Christ "open the eyes of our hearts and enable us to bear witness to him with simplicity and courage."