Saint Joseph Catholic Church

“As happens to sailors, if you lose sight of the North Star, it is not uncommon for the ship to drift,” Pope Leo said. “For Christian education, the compass is Christ. Without its light, the educational mission itself is emptied of meaning.”

Christian identity “is the foundation that articulates the educational mission, defines its horizon of meaning and guides its daily practices,” the Pope continued. “When identity does not inform pedagogical decisions, it runs the risk of becoming a superficial ornament that fails to sustain educational work in the face of the many cultural, ethical and social tensions that characterize our times of polarization and violence.”

In the ninth special jubilee audience of 2025, Pope Leo XIV paid tribute to the Servant of God Dorothy Day (1897-1980).

The trip—the first foreign travel of this pontificate—will be highlighted by an ecumenical celebration of the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicea. Pope Leo will also attend the celebration of the Divine Liturgy with Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I on November 30, the feast of St. Andrew, the patron of the Constantinople archdiocese.

From Turkey the Pope will fly to Lebanon, where he will pray at the site of the 2020 Beirut port explosion. He will visit several Catholic shrines, as well as the seat of the Maronite Catholic patriarchate, before returning to Rome on December 2.

Continuing his series of talks on hope, the Pope said: “To hope in life means to have a foretaste of the goal.” He continued:

Hope acts as the deep-seated drive that keeps us walking in difficulty, that prevents us from giving up in the fatigue of the journey, that makes us certain that the pilgrimage of existence will lead us home.

Hope also encourages believers to share their lives with others, the Pope said, adding that this sharing reaches a “marvellous crescendo” in marital love.

Una Caro, the document released on November 25 by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF), was advertised as a Vatican statement on polygamy. But actually the DDF document is a paean to marriage, with only infrequent references to polygamy.