Vatican City, Aug 1, 2020 / 03:45 am (CNA).- Pope Francis appointed an official from the Vatican Secretariat of State as his new personal secretary Saturday.
The Holy See press office said Aug. 1 that the 41-year-old Fr. Fabio Salerno would succeed Msgr. Yoannis Lahzi Gaid, who had served in the role since April 2014.
Salerno currently works in the Secretariat of State’s Section for Relations with States, also known as the Second Section. In the new role he will become one of the pope’s closest collaborators.
Gaid, a Coptic Catholic priest born in the Egyptian capital Cairo, was the first Eastern Catholic to hold the position. The 45-year-old will now focus on his work with the Higher Committee of Human Fraternity, a body formed after the pope and Grand Imam of Al-Azhar signed the Document on Human Fraternity in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, in February 2019.
Salerno was born in Catanzaro, the capital of Italy’s Calabria region, on April 25, 1979. He was ordained to the priesthood in the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Catanzaro-Squillace on March 19, 2011.
He acquired a doctorate in both civil and church law at the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome. Following studies at the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy, he served as secretary of the apostolic nunciature in Indonesia and of the Permanent Mission of the Holy See to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, France.
In his new role, Salerno will work alongside Fr. Gonzalo Aemilius, a Uruguayan who formerly worked with street children. The pope named Aemilius as his personal secretary in January, replacing the Argentine Mgsr. Fabián Pedacchio, who occupied the post from 2013 to 2019, when he returned to his position at the Congregation of Bishops.
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Archbishop-designate Frank Leo of Toronto. / Archdiocese of Toronto
Vatican City, Feb 11, 2023 / 09:10 am (CNA).
Pope Francis on Saturday appointed Bishop Francis (Frank) Leo to lead the Archdiocese of Toronto, Canada’s largest Catholic diocese… […]
Pope Leo XIV addresses thousands of Church and civil lawyers, judges, and others who work in the legal environment during the Jubilee of Workers of Justice, part of the yearlong Jubilee of Hope, in St. Peter’s Square on Sept. 20, 2025. / Credit: Vatican Media.
Vatican City, Sep 20, 2025 / 10:30 am (CNA).
Forgiveness is fundamental to the virtue of justice, Pope Leo XIV said to thousands of legal professionals gathered in Rome for the Jubilee of Workers of Justice on Saturday.
“It is the power of forgiveness, which is proper to the commandment of love, that emerges as a constitutive element of a justice capable of combining the supernatural with the human,” the pope said in St. Peter’s Square on Sept. 20.
Leo, who has a doctorate in Church law, explained that the evangelical virtue of justice is not a distraction from human justice, but “questions and redesigns it: It provokes it to go even further, because it pushes it towards the search for reconciliation.”
“Evil, in fact, must not only be punished, but also repaired, and to this end, a profound gaze toward the good of individuals and the common good is necessary,” he urged Church and civil lawyers, judges, and others who work in the legal environment.
“This is an arduous task, but not impossible for those who, aware that they are performing a more demanding service than others, are committed to leading an irreproachable life,” the pope added.
Pope Leo XIV addresses thousands of legal professionals gathered in St. Peter’s Square for the Jubilee of Workers of Justice on Sept. 20, 2025. Credit: Vatican Media.
An estimated 20,000 people from 100 countries took part in the Jubilee of Workers of Justice, part of the yearlong Jubilee of Hope, including a large number of pilgrims from the United States and Canada. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito was also in attendance.
Joshua McCaig, a lawyer and founding president of the Catholic Bar Association, traveled to Rome for the jubilee with a delegation of over 50 legal professionals from the U.S.
He told EWTN News he hopes the event “will be an opportunity for us all to reflect on what more we can do for the common good.”
“The Catholic Church brings resources, brings hope, brings community, brings values that are instilled in the teachings of Jesus Christ to help all individuals — but also those in the legal profession — further develop an understanding of how this world should be and the role we should play in it,” he said.
Before the audience with the pope, Archbishop Juan Ignacio Arrieta, secretary of the Dicastery for Legislative Texts, gave a lecture on the theme of “Iustitia Imago Dei: the operator of justice, instrument of hope.”
“Those who administer justice in the Church must also be pastors. … They must respect justice, but they are pastors who must also watch over the good of souls,” Arrieta told EWTN News this week.
In his message, Pope Leo emphasized that the function of justice “is indispensable both for the orderly development of society and as a cardinal virtue that inspires and guides the conscience of every man and woman.”
“Striving for justice, therefore, requires being able to love it as a reality that can only be achieved through constant attention, radical disinterest, and assiduous discernment,” he said.
He noted that the Jubilee of Workers of Justice is a chance to also reflect on an overlooked aspect of justice, the reality that many countries and people “hunger and thirst for justice” because their living conditions are gravely unjust and inhuman.
The pontiff cited St. Augustine, calling the saint’s words “timeless truths” to apply to the current international situation.
“’Without justice,’” the pope quoted, “’the state cannot be administered; it is impossible to have law in a state where there is no true justice. An act performed according to law is certainly performed according to justice, and it is impossible to perform an act according to law that is performed against justice […] A state where there is no justice is not a state. Justice is, in fact, the virtue that distributes to each his due. Therefore, it is not human justice that takes man away from the true God.’”
“May the challenging words of St. Augustine inspire each of us to always express the exercise of justice in the service of the people to the best of our ability, with our gaze turned to God, so as to fully respect justice, law, and the dignity of persons,” Leo said.
Matteo Ciofi, EWTN News Nightly Vatican producer, and Victoria Cardiel, Vatican Correspondent for ACI Prensa/EWTN News, contributed to this report.
Pope Francis led the “Regina Caeli” on Monday, April 18, 2022, at St. Peter’s Square. / Daniel Ibáñez | CNA
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Apr 18, 2022 / 10:40 am (CNA).
Fear is like a tomb that can “bury us,” Pope Francis said Monday, but the Risen Lord’s words to the women who were the first to announce his resurrection apply to us, as well: “Be not afraid.”
Jesus knows that “our fears are our daily enemies” and that “our fears hide from the great fear, that of death: fear of fading away, or losing loved ones, of being sick, of not being able to cope further,” the pope said.
But Easter marks the day that Jesus conquered death, he added, “so no one else can tell us in a more convincing way: ‘Do not be afraid.’”
Pope Francis led the “Regina Caeli” on Monday, April 18, 2022, at St. Peter’s Square. Daniel Ibáñez | CNA
Pope Francis spoke Monday afternoon to a large crowd in St. Peter’s Square on La Pasquetta, or “Little Easter,” a national holiday in Italy. The day’s Gospel reading, from the twenty-eighth chapter of Matthew, records how Mary Magdalene and “the other Mary” encounter Jesus while running to bring the news of his rising to his disciples.
“Brother, sister, who believe in Christ, do not be afraid! Jesus says: ‘I tasted death for you, I took your pain upon myself. Now I have risen to tell you: I am here with you forever. Do not be afraid!'” Pope Francis said.
The Holy Father noted that the Lord gives the women another instruction: “Go and tell my brethren to go to Galilee, and there they will see me.”
Fear “closes us in on ourselves,” the pope said, but we can overcome fear by answering Jesus’ call to proclaim the resurrection to others.
Pope Francis led the “Regina Caeli” on Monday, April 18, 2022, at St. Peter’s Square. Daniel Ibáñez | CNA
We may doubt our ability to share that news, but it is important to note that “the women were not perhaps the most suitable and prepared to proclaim the resurrection” either, the pope said. Nevertheless, “that did not matter to the Lord.”
Jesus cares only that “we go forth and proclaim … because the Easter joy is not to be kept to oneself,” he said.
“The joy of Christ is strengthened by giving it, it multiplies sharing it,” Pope Francis added. “If we open ourselves and bear the Gospel, our hearts will open and overcome fear. This is the secret: We proclaim and overcome fear.”
In addition to fear, there is another obstacle to sharing the Gospel, the pope noted: falsehood.
Falsehood can be seen in the “counter-proclamation” of the soldiers who guarded the tomb and lied saying that Jesus’s body was stolen by his disciples, the pope said.
“The Gospel says [the guards] were paid ‘a sum of money,’ a good sum, and received these instructions: ‘Tell people, “His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep”’’” Pope Francis said.
But there is a contradiction: If the soldiers were sleeping, how did they see the disciples steal Jesus’ body? The payment they received explains their contrived narrative. Money is “the other lord that Jesus says we must never serve,” the pope said.
“Before the Risen Lord, there is another ‘god’ – the god of money that dirties and ruins everything, that closes the door to salvation,” Pope Francis said. “This is present everywhere in daily life with the temptation to adore the god of money.”
Pope Francis said that when deceit and lies are discovered by the media within the lives of people, it causes scandal.
“But let us give a name also to the obscurity and falsehoods we have in ourselves! And let us place our own darkness and falsehoods before the light of the Risen Jesus,” he said.
Jesus wants to “bring hidden things to light to make us transparent and luminous witnesses to the joy of the Gospel, of the truth that will make you free,” he said.
He then asked “Mary, Mother of the Risen One,” to “help us overcome our fears and give us passion for the truth.”
The Holy Father is serving humanity through intense prayer, constructive deeds, creative ideas, and empowering words. May he be blessed with good health and fine collaborators.
The Holy Father is serving humanity through intense prayer, constructive deeds, creative ideas, and empowering words. May he be blessed with good health and fine collaborators.