Saint Joseph Catholic Church

Pope Leo XIV celebrated an outdoor Mass this afternoon in Monaco’s Stade Louis II (video) and preached that “in the world’s prolonged Lent, when evil rages and idolatry makes hearts indifferent, the Lord prepares his Easter.”

A proponent of changes to Catholic teaching on sexual morality, Bishop Wilmer was once rumored to be under serious consideration for appointment as prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. He was elected chairman of the German Bishops’ Conference last month.

The appointment of the Münster bishop is governed by the Prussian Concordat (1929). The Pillar explained:

Under the concordat, members of the cathedral chapter compile a list of candidates that is submitted to the Vatican via the nuncio. After the Vatican sends back a list of three names, the cathedral chapter’s 16 voting members choose the next Bishop of Münster.

Pope Leo encouraged Monaco’s young people to look to St. Devota and St. Carlo Acutis as examples of faith and charity.

“Initial assessments indicate that portions of the church were desecrated in the incident,” the Diocese of Alexandria said in a statement. “Local authorities have confirmed that suspects have been identified and arrested in connection with the crime.”

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has documented over 400 acts of vandalism, arson, and other destruction at parishes and other Catholic sites in the United States since 2020. A tracker at CatholicVote.org lists additional attacks.

Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio told Vatican News that just as it is unthinkable for a priest to leave his congregation and celebrate Mass alone in a crypt chapel, it should also be unthinkable for a parish priest to govern apart from the laity.

Synodality, he said, “consists in gathering, engaging in dialogue, discerning, and deciding upon the good of the Church—for instance, the good of a specific parish. These four activities, carried out jointly by pastors and the faithful, find their institutional home within structures of synodality—for example, in the case of a parish, within the parish pastoral council.”

Father Roberto Pasolini, the Preacher of the Papal Household, devoted his fourth and final weekly Lenten sermon to “the freedom of God’s children: perfect joy and death as a sister” (full text, video).