Saint Joseph Catholic Church

The Commission, an advisory body at the service of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, is devoting its plenary assembly this year to the theme of suffering and sickness in the Bible, as it did in 2023 and 2024. The 2025 assembly was cancelled because of Pope Francis’s death.

“In Christ, suffering and illness are no longer a cruel destiny before which we must bow without understanding,” Pope Leo wrote in his message, dated March 27 and released on April 13. “With Jesus, pain is transformed into love, into redemption, and into fraternal help. Let us, then, welcome Christ into our lives: He is the only physician who can heal the illnesses of the soul forever.”

The Pope added:

Let us contemplate in particular the Sorrowful Mother together with Jesus at the foot of the Cross: as Mother, she suffers on Calvary the sufferings of her Son and shares in them with a heart full of faith, offering her piercing sorrow for the good of all. In this way, her intercession acquires for us a unique value.

The example of the Mother invites every believer, not only to pray for their brothers and sisters, but also to imitate the humble offering of their own sufferings in union with the Sacrifice of Christ.

Pope Leo XIV concluded the first day of his apostolic journey to four African nations with an address to Algerian Catholics in the Basilica of Our Lady of Africa in Algiers, the capital of Algeria (video).