Vatican to publish Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical May 25

Black smoke billows over the city after drone strikes in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv on Sept. 19, 2023, amid Russia’s military invasion on Ukraine. / Credit: YURIY DYACHYSHYN/AFP via Getty Images

Rome Newsroom, Mar 10, 2025 / 17:15 pm (CNA).

Since being admitted to Rome’s Gemelli Hospital on Feb. 14, Pope Francis has dedicated time to work and pray while being treated for bilateral pneumonia and other medical conditions. And as the world continues to pray for him throughout his prolonged hospitalization, the 88-year-old pontiff has asked people to remember to pray for God’s “gift of peace” for those suffering in the following countries:

Ukraine

Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than three years ago on Feb. 24, 2022, Pope Francis has never failed to ask people to pray for “martyred Ukraine” and the millions of victims of war who have been killed, injured, or left homeless as a result of the ongoing conflict.

In January, the pope said his “wish for the year 2025” was for the entire international community to end the Russia-Ukraine war that has “caused so much bloodshed in war-torn Ukraine.” Since the outbreak of the war, the Holy Father has called for the release of all prisoners and accessible humanitarian assistance for those in need.

Though official numbers of Ukrainian and Russian war casualties are unknown, the Wall Street Journal reported in September 2024 that an estimated 1 million people have died or been injured since the large-scale Russian invasion. The United Nations has verified that at least 12,600 civilians have been killed and an additional 29,390 civilians injured since February 2022.

“A painful and shameful occasion for the whole of humanity!” the pope shared in his Feb. 23 Angelus message from Gemelli Hospital. “I reiterate my closeness to the suffering people of Ukraine.”

Democratic Republic of Congo

The Congo’s complex humanitarian situation — exacerbated by natural disasters, armed conflicts, and epidemics — has not gone unnoticed for the pontiff who visited the central African nation in 2023.

The Holy Father has often addressed the plight of the Congolese to pilgrims who come to the Vatican to attend his general audiences or to pray the Sunday Angelus with him in St. Peter’s Square.

On Feb. 14, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported more than 21.2 million people in the Congo are in need of aid.

Amid the country’s worsening humanitarian situation after the fall of Goma, in North Kivu, and Bukavu, in South Kivu, to M23 forces backed by Rwandan fighters, Aid to the Church in Need reported Christians have been targeted by armed groups after more than 70 people were massacred in a Protestant church and an additional 100 people taken hostage by terrorists in North Kivu last month.

Myanmar (Burma)

Pope Francis is the first pontiff to visit the majority-Buddhist southeast Asian nation that has been afflicted by heightened political unrest and violence since a 2021 military coup that thwarted the country’s transition toward democratic rule.

Appealing to warring parties to lay down their arms, the pope has asked the international community to remember the country’s elderly, children, sick, and the Rohingya ethnic minority.

More than 18.6 million people, 6 million of whom are children, are in need of humanitarian aid, according to a Feb. 21 report published by United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF).

Sudan

Pope Francis said “the ongoing conflict in Sudan, which began in April 2023, is causing the most serious humanitarian crisis in the world, with dramatic consequences in South Sudan too” and during his Jan. 26 Angelus address renewed his appeal to those who are at war in Sudan to negotiate peace and end the hostilities.

In a March 10 report, the World Health Organization (WHO) said the conflict in Sudan has “caused the world’s largest and fastest-growing displacement crisis, with 12.8 million forcibly displaced.” WHO reported the country’s malnutrition rates are “among the highest globally,” with 4.9 million children under 5 and pregnant women “acutely malnourished.”  

Attacks on health care facilities also contributed to the August 2024 outbreak of cholera in the north African nation that has led to 1,500 deaths out of the 55,000 cases reported, according to UNICEF.  

Palestine

The impact of the decades-long political instability and violence in Gaza and the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) — two Palestinian territories occupied by Israel since 1967 —  is a concern close to the heart of the 88-year-old pope. 

Since the Oct. 7, 2023, declaration of the Israel-Hamas war, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights’ February 2025 report states more than 100,000 people have been injured in the conflict. According to the report at least 34,399 Palestinians — the majority of them women and children — were killed in Gaza between Nov. 1, 2023, and Oct. 31, 2024.

While undergoing complex medical treatment at Gemelli Hospital, the Holy Father continues to make a daily call to the Holy Family Church in Gaza to check in on their welfare as approximately 600 people are still seeking shelter at the parish.

During a Dec. 6, 2024, Aid to the Church in Need press conference, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, OFM, told journalists the pope’s calls are “a very big support” for the community of Gaza.

Israel

Unable to read his Jan. 9 address to the diplomatic corp earlier this year due to a persistent cold, in his prepared speech the pontiff nevertheless stressed his great desire for peace in the country, a permanent cease-fire, and the release of Israeli hostages detained in Gaza.

More than 250 Israelis were taken hostage following Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. At least 1,200 Israelis were killed on the same day, according to a BBC report. The attack, which sparked Israel’s declaration of war against the extreme Islamic terrorist group, was strongly condemned by the Holy Father.

​​”My prayerful hope is that Israelis and Palestinians can rebuild the bridges of dialogue and mutual trust,” the Holy Father expressed in his 2025 speech. “So that future generations can live side by side in the two states, in peace and security.”

Praying for harmony and mutual respect among Christians, Jews, and Muslims in the Holy Land has been a daily prayer of the pope since the early years of his pontificate. Following his 2014 pilgrimage to the Holy Land, the Holy See invited former President of Israel Shimon Peres, President of Palestine Mahmoud Abbas, and Patriarch Bartholomew I to the Vatican for the Invocation of Peace. 

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Vatican City, Jan 14, 2020 / 12:37 pm (CNA).- In his chapter in a new book on priestly celibacy, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI says a historical understanding of the priesthood in the Old and New Testaments makes it clear that celibacy is an ontological, rather than optional, part of the Catholic priesthood.

“From the Depths of Our Hearts” is set to be released in French this week and in English next month. The book consists of chapters written individually by Benedict and Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, as well as a joint introduction and conclusion.

Controversy has shrouded the book since its publication was announced Jan. 12, largely over disagreement about how much Benedict contributed to the book’s introduction and conclusion, and whether he gave permission for publishers to identify him as a coauthor of the text.

While that controversy is ongoing, less discussed is what Benedict XVI actually said in the chapter of the book that the pope emeritus did write.

What did Benedict XVI say in his chapter of the book?

At the core of his writing is an argument that the sexual abstinence that was merely “functional” for the priests of the Old Testament has been transformed into something “ontological” in the priesthood of the New Covenant, according to a draft text of the book seen by CNA.

Benedict’s chapter examines the history of the priesthood in the Old and New Testaments, saying that a proper understanding of the nature of the priesthood is crucial in answering contemporary questions about priestly celibacy.

“At the foundation of the serious situation in which the priesthood finds itself today, we find a methodological flaw in the reception of Scripture as Word of God,” Benedict says.

Abandoning a Christological interpretation of the Old Testament has led to a “deficient theology of worship” among many modern scholars, who fail to recognize that Jesus fulfilled the worship owed to God, rather than abolishing it, he continues.

Looking at the history of the priesthood in the Old Testament, Benedict says that “the relation between sexual abstinence and divine worship was absolutely clear in the common awareness of Israel.”

He notes that the priests of Israel were required to observe sexual abstinence during their time that they spend leading worship, when they were “in contact with the divine mystery.”

“Given that the priests of the Old Testament had to dedicate themselves to worship only during set times, marriage and the priesthood were compatible,” he says. “But because of the regular and often even daily celebration of the Eucharist, the situation of the priests of the Church of Jesus Christ has changed radically.”

Since the entire life of the priest in the New Covenant is “in contact with the divine mystery,” he says, it demands “exclusivity with regard to God” and becomes incompatible with marriage, which also requires one’s whole life.

“From the daily celebration of the Eucharist, which implies a permanent state of service to God, was born spontaneously the impossibility of a matrimonial bond. We can say that the sexual abstinence that was functional was transformed automatically into an ontological abstinence. Thus its motivation and its significance were changed from within and profoundly.”

Benedict’s text seems focused on the Latin Catholic Church; many Eastern Catholic priests do not celebrate Mass daily, and the former pope does not address specifically theology of Eastern Catholic married priests.

The pope emeritus rejects the idea that priestly celibacy is based on a contempt for human sexuality within the Church. He notes that this claim was also dismissed by the Church Fathers, and that the Church has always viewed marriage as a gift from God.

“However, the married state involves a man in his totality, and since serving the Lord likewise requires the total gift of a man, it does not seem possible to carry on the two vocations simultaneously,” he says. “Thus, the ability to renounce marriage so as to place oneself totally at the Lord’s disposition became a criterion for priestly ministry.”

Just as the priests from the Tribe of Levi renounced ownership of land, priests in the New Covenant renounce marriage and family, as a sign of their radical commitment to God, he says.

This is seen in the Psalm prayed when a man entered the clergy before the Second Vatican Council, he says: “The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot. The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; yes, I have a goodly heritage.”

Benedict concludes with a reflection on the words of John 17:17-18: “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.”

He says these words struck him deeply on the day before he was ordained a priest, and led him to reflect on the lifelong calling of a priest to continually unite himself to Christ and renounce “what belongs only to us.”

“Thus, on that eve of my ordination, a deep impression was left on my soul of what it means to be ordained a priest, beyond all the ceremonial aspects: it means that we must continually be purified and overcome by Christ so that He is the one who speaks and acts in us, and less and less we ourselves,” the pope emeritus says.

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Pope Francis offers a prayer at the conclusion of the 2023 Synod on Synodality. / Credit: Vatican Media

Vatican City, Jul 29, 2024 / 11:18 am (CNA).
The Vatican was criticized by online commentators over the weekend for swiftly deleting an onli… […]