Saint Joseph Catholic Church

Pope Leo XIV visited a prison in Bata, the largest city in Equatorial Guinea, this evening and told the prisoners that “today, I am here to tell you something simple: no one is excluded from God’s love!” (video)

Vatican News, the news agency of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication, reported:

Among the 55 villages in southern Lebanon where the Israeli army is currently using excavators and bulldozers to demolish the last remaining public buildings, schools, and private homes—structures that had somehow survived the fierce bombardments of recent weeks—and which military commanders just yesterday declared off-limits to the residents who had fled to save their lives, there remain three villages that are still almost intact and inhabited.

Father Tony Elias, a Maronite priest who ministers in Rmeish, told Vatican News that “there is no way in or out. All the roads are blocked. We are struggling immensely to get water, baby formula, and diesel fuel delivered.”

Pope Leo XIV visited a psychiatric hospital in Equatorial Guinea (video) and said that loving care for the sick is a hallmark of Christian civilization.

“In harmony with his predecessors, he took up the legacy of the Second Vatican Council and spurred the Church to be open to mission,” Pope Leo continued. “We still hear his exhortations, expressed in eloquent words, to make the good news more understandable: mercy, peace, brotherhood, the smell of the sheep, the field hospital and many others. Each of these expressions brings us back to the Gospel he lived with a new language that proclaims the same Gospel as always.”

Pope Leo also highlighted his predecessor’s Marian devotion.

“Pope Francis nurtured a deep devotion to Mary throughout his life,” he said, citing his visits to the Papal Basilica of Saint Mary Major and Marian shrines around the world. “May the Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church, help us to be tireless apostles of her divine Son and prophets of his merciful love in every circumstance.”