Saint Joseph Catholic Church

“You will have the challenge and the opportunity to make a big difference, if you carry with you those Augustinian values of Veritas, Unitas, Caritas” (Truth, Unity, Charity), Pope Leo wrote.

The Pope added:

This being the 250th anniversary of the United States of America, I would invite you to recall in a special way the guiding principles of the foundations of our nation: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all [people] are created equal; that they are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights, and among those are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

May the graduates of 2026 always be faithful to the guiding light that has been so important for these 250 years.

The Dioceses of Salina, Kansas; Wichita, Kansas; Steubenville, Ohio; Duluth, Minnesota; Pensacola-Tallahassee, Florida; Wheeling-Charleston, West Virginia; Helena, Montana; and Nashville, Tennessee, round out the top ten.

Two dioceses—Altoona-Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and Fairbanks, Alaska—reported no diocesan seminarians. Other dioceses that struggle to attract priestly vocations, according to the data in the Directory, include Brownsville, Texas (1 seminarian per 239,896 Catholics); Norwich, Connecticut (1 seminarian per 228,520 Catholics); and Rockville Centre, New York (1 seminarian per 193,629 Catholics).

“When a deepfake lends a personʼs face to words they have never spoken ... it is the very grammar of the human encounter that is altered,” said Cardinal Jose Tolentino de Mendonça.

“Technology that exploits our need for relationship,” he added, “can not only have painful consequences on the destiny of individuals, but it can also damage the social, cultural, and political fabric of societies.”

Bishop Mariano Crociata of Latina-Terracina-Sezze-Priverno (Italy), COMECE’s president, said that the EU “is weakened by the lack of unity, also as a result of populism.” Bishop Czeslaw Kozon of Copenhagen (Denmark), COMECE’s vice president, said that “the issue of immigration has existed for several decades and is well known, but what appears relatively new is the way populism uses it, transforming it into an alleged threat to many societies.”

Police ended their criminal investigation into Dia Moodley, a Protestant pastor arrested in Bristol, England, in November on suspicion of inciting religious hatred.

Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, the prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, criticized the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s Notification on the Works of Fr. Jon Sobrino, S.J..

Pope Leo XIV today addressed participants in a Vatican conference on artificial intelligence, told them that the Church’s primary concern is the eternal salvation of every human person, and said that contemplation of Christ is the means to come to the truth about God and man.

The president of the Cuban Bishops’ Conference said that “Cuba is suffering” and that “this is the saddest and most difficult time that I am aware of in the history of my people.”