Saint Joseph Catholic Church

Pope Leo XIV received Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, Cuba’s minister of foreign affairs, in a February 28 audience.

“We wholeheartedly agreed upon the necessity to put Christ in the center to move us to visible unity,” Lutheran prelate Heinrich Bedford-Strohm said following the meeting. “We also agreed that a strong prophetic voice against the unscrupulous instrumentalization of Christian faith for political purposes is needed.”

Pope Leo responded to the topics raised by the non-Catholic leaders “with profound wisdom, spirituality and compassion,” Bedford-Strohm added. “He reinforced what he has been saying all along about the need for visible Christian unity, recognizing the challenges this has even in the Roman Catholic Church because of different and diverse views.”

350 Protestant and Orthodox communities are members of the World Council of Churches, which is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. Pope Francis made an ecumenical pilgrimage to Geneva in 2018 for the World Council of Churches’ 70th anniversary.

Pope Leo XIV visited the Church of the Ascension of Our Lord Jesus Christ in Rome on March 1 (video) and repeatedly called for prayers for peace.

The letter appears in the newly published Italian work La fede del futuro: Il futuro della Chiesa.

Pope Leo XIV promulgated new statutes for the Pontifical Academy for Life, replacing the almost identical statutes issued by Pope Francis in 2016.

Echoing Pope Leo XIV’s peace appeal, the president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops called upon the parties in the Iran–United States conflict to halt the spiral of violence and return to negotiations.

Pope Leo XIV received seminarians from four Spanish dioceses on February 28 and advised them to practice the presence of God, lest they become like the barren fig tree mentioned by Christ (Luke 13:6-9).

Following the Israeli–United States strikes on Iran and Iran’s retaliatory attacks, Pope Leo XIV issued a “heartfelt appeal” to belligerents to halt the “spiral of violence.”