Saint Joseph Catholic Church

The announcement, made March 7, confirmed an earlier announcement by the Prefecture of the Pontifical Household that Pope Leo will celebrate the Holy Thursday evening Mass in the Lateran Basilica, as was customary before the pontificate of Pope Francis.

“No one knows where this war will lead,” Cardinal Louis Raphaël Sako said in an interview with Vatican News. “We are afraid because we are neighbors with Iran, and many Iraqis are Shiite. There is a double concern.”

“We Christians are very worried, because if they start attacking the Nineveh Plains, where there are 50,000 Christians, these people will leave their homes—and this time, they will not return,” he said.

Prime Minister Inga Ruginienė of Lithuania met with Pope Leo XIV and thanked him for his support for Ukraine.

During a visit to the Church of Saint Maria della Presentazione in Rome, Pope Leo spoke with youth, with the sick and elderly, and with parish council members.

Pope Leo XIV celebrated Mass at the Church of Saint Maria della Presentazione in Rome (video) and encouraged the faithful to review their relationship with God this Lent in light of Christ’s encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:5-42).

A native of Burkina Faso, Father Relwendé Kisito Ouédraogo was ordained to the priesthood in 2000 and began to work in the Secretariat of State in 2010. Last month, Pope Leo XIV appointed him apostolic nuncio to two nations, the Republic of the Congo and Gabon.

The nuncio’s mission, Cardinal Parolin preached, is to “bring truth and light, peace and unity amid the darkness of sin, division, and falsehood.” The episcopal ordination Mass took place on March 7 at the Marian shrine and basilica in Yagma.

“The action of the Military Chaplain is often carried out in silence, in places of peace and in those of conflict, in military bases and in operational contexts, in chapels and in field tents,” Pope Leo said March 7, in an audience in Clementine Hall of the Apostolic Palace. “It is there that the care of the Lord’s flock is manifested through the witness of life, the proclamation of the Gospel, the celebration of the Eucharist and in the Sacraments, patient listening and spiritual accompaniment.”

Turning to the mission of the Christian soldier, the Pope added:

Defending the weak, protecting peaceful coexistence, intervening in disasters, operating in international missions to preserve peace and restore order. All this cannot be reduced to a mere profession: it is a vocation, a response to a call that challenges the conscience. The soldier’s identity is forged by generosity, a spirit of service, high aspirations and deep feelings.

But these values require a foundation, a gift of Grace capable of fostering charity to the point of total self-sacrifice. It is therefore necessary to inspire the codes, norms and missions of military life with the lifeblood of the Gospel so that, in the service of security and peace, the common good of peoples is always the first priority.