Saint Joseph Catholic Church

The typical member of the priestly ordination class of 2026 is a 33-year-old cradle Catholic, according to a newly released survey of 334 of the 428 men slated to be ordained to the priesthood in the United States this year. The survey was conducted for the Secretariat of Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate and posted on the USCCB’s website.

“Both sides are coming out to receive him, and both sides are ready to listen to his message,” said Archbishop Andrew Nkea Fuanya of Bamenda. “This is a miracle. And, although you could not identify them, the crowd in Bamenda was too big not to have separatists in there, which means that they were also on the road cheering the Pope passing.”

Archbishop Fuanya added:

When the Pope comes to a place, it is an event. But really that event is not as important as the aftermath of the event. The Pope has given speeches and messages. We have all clapped. We are all happy. What next?

That question is very important for all of us. I think that in the whole country, we have to sit down to digest all those messages. And secondly, we have to see what it takes to be able to implement them.

“Yours is not only a path of excellence: it is a mission,” Pope Leo wrote to the Toniolo Young Professional Association, named after the lay economist Blessed Giuseppe Toniolo (1845-1918). “You are not asked to emerge, but to serve. Not to affirm yourselves, but to make fruitful what you have received.”

“’May you disappear so that Christ may remain’: this maxim does not diminish, but frees,” Pope Leo added in his April 18 message. “It frees you from the search for consensus, to root you in the truth; it frees you from appearances, to consign you to the substance of good.”

Reflecting on the theme of the day—“the experience of knowledge”—Cardinal Parolin wrote that “the processes of knowledge cannot be reduced to the production of increasingly powerful algorithms, but, on the contrary, require an adequate level of human responsibility and ethical evaluation.”

Cardinal Parolin also warned against the “many distortions caused by research aimed only at economic profit and objectives of dominance. Knowledge that is not oriented towards encounter and justice is at the root of many evils, as the troubled history in which we are immersed attests.”

The message, dated April 12, was released on April 23.

Pope Leo XIV celebrated Mass today (video) in Saurimo, a remote city in eastern Angola, and called on the faithful to reject superstition and follow Christ in freedom.