Saint Joseph Catholic Church

“For the diplomats of the Holy See, this commitment is rooted in the virtue of hope, in the conviction that peace is born above all as a gift from God,” said Archbishop Pennacchio, who was appointed the academy’s president in 2023. “It is the task of the pontifical representative to nourish this hope in the light of Christ, with a spiritual life founded on the daily listening to the Word of God and on prayer.”

Vatican News, the news agency of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication, interviewed the prelate as the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy begins its 325th anniversary year. The academy trains priests for the Holy See’s diplomatic service.

The Vatican newspaper warned that the West African nation of Guinea-Bissau (map) is “threatened by rising sea levels and climate change.”

“The artist Annalaura di Luggo felt the urgency to open other symbolic gateways, giving life to Oculus Spei, an installation composed of virtual portals, capable of conveying the emotion of the opening to an even wider audience, overcoming physical, cultural, and sensory boundaries,” Msgr. Lucio Adrián Ruiz, secretary of the Dicastery for Communication, said at the January 14 screening.

The Vatican newspaper has published a contribution to the discussion of the meaning of ordo amoris [order of love], nearly a year after US Vice President JD Vance spoke about the concept and Pope Francis wrote about it in a letter to the bishops of the United States.

Amid “serious ongoing threats against peace, shaped by persistent armed conflicts and geopolitical tensions in many regions of the world,” Archbishop Gintaras Grušas of Vilnius made “a strong common appeal to pray for peace, in whatsoever liturgical form you see fit, especially during the upcoming Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, so that this unity may be achieved not only among Christians but also among all the parties in conflict with each other.”

Archbishop Grušas made his appeal in a January 12 letter to presidents of the various European bishops’ conferences.

In a letter to the director of La Repubblica for the Italian newspaper’s 50th anniversary, Pope Leo XIV paid tribute to freedom of the press and said that the press should be “animated by the search for truth.”