Saint Joseph Catholic Church

The Vatican press office has confirmed that Pope Leo XIV spoke of his prayers for Charlie Kirk and his family during a meeting on Saturday with the new US ambassador to the Holy See, Brian Burch.

Matteo Bruni, the Vatican spokesman, said that in the same meeting with the American envoy the Pontiff “spoke of the need to refrain from rhetoric and instrumentalization that lead to polarization rather than dialogue.”

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Another Catholic priest has been kidnapped in Nigeria.

Father Wilfred Ezemba was among several people seized by armed men on the road near Imane on September 13. Police are searching for the kidnappers.

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In a video message to the faithful of Lampedusa, Pope Leo XIV praised the islanders’ hospitality to migrants and recalled Pope Francis’s 2013 apostolic journey there.

“Just as Pope Francis opposed the globalization of indifference with the culture of encounter, so today I would like for us, together, to begin to oppose the globalization of powerlessness with a culture of reconciliation,” Pope Leo said. “Today we must meet each other by healing our wounds, forgiving each other for the evil we have done and also that we have not done, but whose effects we bear.”

“So much fear, so many prejudices, so many great walls, even invisible ones, that are between us and between our peoples, as consequences of a wounded history,” the Pope continued, adding:

Evil is handed down from one generation to another, from one community to another. But good is also transmitted, and it knows that it is stronger! To practice it, to put it back into circulation, we must become experts in reconciliation.

Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Secretary of State of His Holiness, encouraged participants in a Vatican conference to work to build a different planet.

In his keynote address to the Pontifical Academy of Theology’s conference on “Creation, Nature, Environment for a World of Peace,” Cardinal Parolin said that “the current worrying historical context is, unfortunately, characterized by conflict, selfishness, indifference, and the inability to listen to others, to see the great opportunities that open up to us through the simple act of collaborating together, interacting with mutual respect and in the responsible awareness that, as clearly stated in Laudato Si’, everything is interconnected.”

“The harmony between the Creator, humanity, and all of creation has been destroyed because we claimed to take God’s place, refusing to recognize ourselves as limited creatures,” he continued. “What we need is a new perspective on a new world, capable of carefully reading the challenges and signs of the times that can contribute to peace by stimulating social dialogue.”

Pope Leo XIV presided at an ecumenical commemoration of 21st-century martyrs at the Papal Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls on September 14.

“Despite the end of the great dictatorships of the twentieth century, to this day the persecution of Christians has not ended; on the contrary, in some parts of the world it has increased,” Pope Leo preached.

“Just as in the first centuries, so too in the third millennium, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of new Christians,” he continued. “We want to keep this memory alive alongside our brothers and sisters of other Churches and Christian Communities. I therefore wish to reaffirm the commitment of the Catholic Church to safeguard the memory of the witnesses of the faith from all Christian traditions.”

During his homily, the Pope cited the witness of Sister Dorothy Stang, Father Ragheed Ganni, and Anglican Brother Francis Tofi.