On this All Souls Day, I remember that years ago I was told that there had been a priest in Oklahoma who once began a funeral Mass saying, in effect, “We are gathered here today to pray for so-and-so who has passed from this life and, God willing, has made it safely into purgatory.” 

As you can imagine, this didn’t go over too well, but you get the idea: we pray for the dead and we believe that the dead can benefit from our prayers. 

Indeed, this is what is most distinctive about Catholic funerals: we’ve come to pray for the deceased, not merely celebrate their life, as if that were all there is. We begin every Mass except funeral Masses with a Penitential Rite in which we acknowledge that we are sinners and ask God to forgive us. 

In funerals we still ask God to forgive us (in The Lamb of God and elsewhere) but the Penitential Rite is replaced by the rite of receiving the body at the entrance to the Church, sprinkling the body with holy water as a reminder of baptism, through which the deceased was set free from the power of sin and death, and prayers throughout the Mass in which we acknowledge that — like all the rest of us — the deceased was a sinner and so we are asking God to forgive him or her. 

Which makes it feel really odd when we attend a funeral that comes off more like a Mass of canonization than a Mass in which we have come to plead for God’s mercy for our loved one. If the funeral Masses of Mother Teresa and Popes John Paul II, Benedict and Francis included all our traditional prayers for God’s mercy, doesn’t it make sense that the rest of us who are not quite so evidently saintly might need a bit of God’s mercy as well?

This is why we have All Souls Day, which you won’t find in those churches whose funerals are merely celebrations of a life, with no thought that the deceased might benefit from some prayers. And while we pray spontaneously for deceased loved ones on their anniversaries of death, today we lift up our prayers also for those who may have no one to pray for them, a beautiful expression of the Communion of the saints. 

We pray for the spiritual welfare of countless people who may be in purgatory whom we have never met, but with whom we are united in faith and in the Mystical Body of Christ: we are the Church Militant, still struggling against evil in this life, praying for the Church Suffering in Purgatory, with the Church Triumphant of those already in heaven interceding for us and for the poor souls in purgatory.

One of the things I have noticed over the years is that people of faith — and in particular, Catholics who really live their faith — grieve differently, and today’s celebration points to one of the reasons why, namely, that death does not really separate us in any definitive or lasting way. 

Not only is our separation temporary — something that all Christians acknowledge — it is also only a physical separation, because spiritually we are not separated at all. Hence, our prayers for the deceased unite us across the boundary between this life and the next, and the intercession of the saints unites us also across the boundary between purgatory and heaven.

Today, united with all the angels and saints, we lift up our prayers to God for the eternal rest of those who have gone before us, that they may have an eternal share in the glory of God’s kingdom, to which as Christians they already belonged in this life and in which we all hope to share fully in the life to come.

Bishop Anthony B. Taylor delivered this homily for All Souls Day Nov. 2.

Father Phillip Reaves, director of the Office of Prison Ministry, delivered a letter Aug. 21 to Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ office signed by 40 faith leaders around Arkansas, to oppose the use of nitrogen gas to kill death row inmates.

Catholic leaders signing the letter included Bishop Antony B. Taylor, Alisa Dixon, a cantor and lector at the Cathedral of St. Andrew; Father Salvador Marquez-Munoz, pastor of St. Mary Church in Siloam Springs; and Father Warren Harvey, a hospital chaplain in Little Rock.

The other leaders represented Methodist, Presbyterian, Unitarian, Episcopal and Baptist churches as well as Buddhist and Jewish congregations.

Before delivering the letter, Father Reaves joined six other Christian pastors from Central Arkansas in a press conference in the Old Supreme Court Room at the State Capitol in Little Rock.

On March 18, Sanders signed a bill into law to allow a new method of executions since drugs for lethal injections are harder to obtain. The law went into effect Aug. 5. Four other states — Louisiana, Alabama, Oklahoma and Mississippi — have similar laws.

In the letter to Sanders, the faith leaders asked her to look at nitrogen asphyxiation as “torture.” They encouraged her to invest in more ways to help victims and keep communities safe instead of the death penalty.

“We are especially concerned about the proposed method of gas asphyxiation, whether through the use of masks or any form of gas chamber. We implore you to look at the recent scientific study and eyewitness accounts of gas executions to ensure our state does not engage in torture,” the letter stated. “Arkansas has the means of keeping society safe without violating the inherent human dignity of every person. We need to do more to help victims in the aftermath of tragedy by providing emotional and financial support and services that help promote healing and recovery… It also denies an opportunity for redemption and healing and drains resources that could be better used serving all victims and preventing crime in the first place. Resources would be better spent preventing child abuse, providing mental health care and substance abuse treatment, and by investing in community safety programs.”  

The leaders also urged her not to “restart” executions, which haven’t happened in the state since 2017. No capital murder trials have resulted in a death sentence since 2018, according to Rev. Jacqui Buschor, pastor of Faith Lutheran Church in Little Rock.

While the leaders opposed the death penalty in general, they were particularly troubled by the governor’s approval of gas asphyxiation as a new way to execute death row inmates.

“The innate human dignity is also stated by our founding fathers,” Father Reaves said. “The Declaration of Independence declares the dignity of every person when it articulates we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Since we do not earn this dignity, nor accept or reject it, it cannot be lost.”

Father Reaves noted that Pope Francis approved changes to the Catechism of the Catholic Church in 2018 to make the death penalty inadmissible in all cases.

“Gov. Sanders, I appeal to you to never use this offense against humanity in the name of correction,” Father Reaves said.

Father Reaves said the state should believe in the power of redemption, noting that three former Arkansas death row inmates graduated from a seminary program in recent years.

“These three men who once were considered worthless and disposable are now ministering to inmates in ways that chaplains cannot,” he said.

Sanders’ spokesman Sam Dubke said Aug. 22, “Gov. Sanders will be thoughtful and deliberative with each individual case as she works to hold criminals accountable and enforce Arkansas law.”

St. Damien de Veuster and St. Marianne Cope have touched countless lives as their legacies of selfless ministry, compassion and faith in Molokai, Hawaii, have been shared across the globe.

A county jail, an abbey and the capital of the United States are among the most recent places where the saints have been celebrated and venerated, thanks to the efforts of an Arkansas man whose life was changed by St. Damien eight years ago.

Since May, Mark Jechura has brought relics of St. Damien and St. Marianne, as well as a piece of wood from a tree planted on topside Molokai by St. Damien, to sites across the mainland  — from Arkansas to Washington, D.C. — on what he has named the Tree of Hope Tour.

In this Jubilee Year of Hope, Jechura told the Hawaii Catholic Herald, “The Church is inviting us to become pilgrims of hope in a world that desperately needs it. Sts. Damien and Marianne — who served the most forgotten in Molokai — embody that message.”

“Their legacy deserves to be carried across the country,” he continued. “The tour is not about spectacle; it’s about planting hope in parishes large and small, one stop at a time.”

Healing and hope

Jechura, 59, a daily Mass-goer at St. Stephen Church in Bentonville, a volunteer fire and hospital chaplain and an employee in the Walmart corporate offices, said he had no direct ties to Hawaii until 2017, when he met a couple from Molokai while on pilgrimage in Fatima, Portugal.

The couple gave Jechura the tree fragment (which has since been authenticated). They did not know that Jechura was seriously ill at the time with an undiagnosed condition.

“I prayed for St. Damien’s intercession and began to recover,” he said. “That healing opened the door to everything that followed.”

“After that healing, I knew I had received something sacred — not just physically, but spiritually,” he said.

Jechura — who is deeply involved in his parish and community — wanted to share the tree fragment and devotion, but his desire did not coalesce into the Tree of Hope Tour until he experienced a second serious illness and subsequent recovery.

This year, declared the Jubilee Year of Hope by the late Pope Francis, “felt providential,” Jechura said. He cited the “wisdom and encouragement” of his spiritual advisers, including clergy and laypeople, as helping him shape the Tree of Hope Tour’s spirit and mission.

Origins of journey

Jechura obtained permission from the Diocese of Honolulu to take the relics on a national tour. Bishop Larry Silva said the ability to transport the relics for veneration outside Hawaii stems from an initiative conceived by the Father Damien-Mother Marianne Commission, which seeks to promote devotion to St. Damien and St. Marianne across the U.S. and the world.

The permanent home of the first-class relics (meaning they are from the bodies of St. Damien and St. Marianne, bone fragments in both cases) is the Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of Peace in downtown Honolulu, though for now they reside at the Co-Cathedral of St. Theresa in Honolulu while the cathedral basilica undergoes major renovations.

“We are grateful for the Tree of Hope Tour organizers for helping promote devotion to these two wonderful saints,” Bishop Silva told the Hawaii Catholic Herald. “We thank (Mark Jechura) and encourage others to do the same.”

The tour begins

Jechura, a master swimmer, kicked off the Tree of Hope Tour on the feast day of St. Damien, May 10, on Molokai. Ambitious plans to inaugurate the trip with a swim across the Kaiwi Channel to Oahu were thwarted, but the tour still got underway with stops in Arkansas and Oklahoma.

The relics are each housed in their own reliquaries — a wooden box for St. Damien and a wooden Tau cross (the symbol of the Franciscan order) for St. Marianne. The tree fragment’s stand resembles a monstrance. A book of prayers in which people can write their intentions is also traveling with the relics and will be returned to Molokai when the tour ends.

One stop of note was the Benton County Jail in Bentonville, where seven incarcerated men were able to view the relics and tree fragment. Jechura described the May 24 visit in an email sent to people following the Tree of Hope Tour virtually: After reflecting on the saints’ lives, “the men held the tree relic with care, passing it reverently from one to another, and offered handwritten intentions that will return to Molokai with the relics.”

‘Quiet reverence’

In June, the relics made a memorable stop in Washington, D.C., at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception — the largest Catholic church in North America and designated by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops as an official “national sanctuary of prayer and pilgrimage.”

The relics spent June 15, the solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, on display in the basilica’s lower-level Crypt Church. Jechura wrote in a June 18 email update that “a quiet reverence filled the Crypt Church” as hundreds of people visited the relics throughout the day, with many writing in the book of prayers.

Tim Dias, a communications associate for the basilica, said that the timing of the visit was notable because both St. Damien and St. Marianne are depicted in the basilica’s Trinity Dome — the “crowning jewel” of the national shrine, which portrays the Trinity and a procession of saints through a mosaic of millions of pieces of colored glass.

The relics’ visit was “a great reminder for all of us that God can choose ordinary people to do extraordinary things, and be examples of virtue and holiness,” he said.

Another period of quiet reverence occurred at Our Lady of Clear Creek Abbey in Hulbert, Okla., where the relics were honored with an overnight vigil that saw participation from hundreds of lay faithful and dozens of monks.

“The monastery’s novices faithfully kept vigil from 9 a.m. to 5 a.m., a moving testimony of young monastic devotion,” Jechura wrote in a June 24 dispatch.

One of the Tree of Hope Tour’s last stops in June was at St. Mary Church in Siloam Springs.

On the solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ, June 22, the relics were viewed and venerated at four Masses — one in English, another in Vietnamese and two in Spanish.

Pastor Father Salvador Marquez-Munoz told the Hawaii Catholic Herald that the relics’ visit on the solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ was not a minor detail.

“The fact that Our Lord keeps offering himself to the Father through his most holy Eucharist on our behalf was an excellent reminder to all of us to offer our lives in the service of others, especially for those who live on the margins of our society, and Father Damien and (Mother) Marianne were a great example of that,” Father Marquez-Munoz said.

“Our congregation in St. Mary’s (is approximately) 80 percent of immigrant people, and the fact that these saints were immigrants like them made it so special and personal,” he added. 

Other stops in Arkansas included St. Stephen Church in Bentonville, St. Joseph Church in Tontitown and Our Lady of Sorrows Church in Springdale.

The Tree of Hope Tour’s July itinerary includes visits to several churches in Arkansas and proposed stops at churches in California, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Jechura said the relics are scheduled to return to Hawaii by the end of July.

Jechura told the Herald that his goal for the tour is for “people to encounter hope.”

“Sts. Damien and Marianne didn’t just serve the poor — they became one with them. They brought dignity, love and healing to people society had abandoned,” he said. “My hope is that this tour will plant seeds — of compassion, of vocation, of reconciliation — and help people realize the Church still has living witnesses of radical love.

“The saints are not distant. They walk with us.”

Arkansas tour

The Jubilee for Sick and Immigrants events will be held July 18-20 at three Jubilee Churches in Arkansas, highlighting the lives and missionary work of St. Damien de Veuster and St. Marianne Cope. First-class relics of these saints will be available for veneration.

• Fort Smith: Immaculate Conception, Friday, July 18: Veneration will be before and after the 7 a.m. Mass.

• Little Rock: St. Edward, Saturday, July 19: Mass will be celebrated at 4 p.m. Private veneration will begin at 3 p.m. and continue to 6 p.m.
• Little Rock: Cathedral of St. Andrew, Sunday, July 20: Relics will be on display during Masses at 8:30 a.m., 12:05 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. After each Mass, a five-minute reflection will be given. Private veneration will be available from 1-5 p.m.

“We’ve had more 3,500 people venerate, and my goal would be to do 5,000, in keeping with the biblical number,” Mark Jechura told Arkansas Catholic. “Jesus fed the 5,000, and he had very little to work with. I’ve given him very little to work with here, and we’ve had good success.”

Legacies of St. Damien and St. Marianne

The work of St. Damien and St. Marianne — who were canonized in 2009 and 2012, respectively — is well known across Hawaii but may not be as well known in Arkansas. 

Damien de Veuster arrived in Hawaii from Belgium in 1864 as a missionary of his religious order, the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. He was ordained a priest in Honolulu, and after nine years on the island, volunteered to minister to people with leprosy (now also called Hansen’s disease) on the remote Molokai peninsula of Kalaupapa, where patients with Hansen’s disease had been quarantined.

Father Damien contracted the disease himself, dying on Molokai in 1889.

Mother Marianne Cope was already a skilled health care administrator in New York when she arrived in Hawaii in 1883, answering a plea from the Hawaiian monarchy to help care for Hansen’s disease patients.

Mother Marianne and other sisters of St. Francis were based on Oahu, ministering to Hansen’s disease patients and their healthy children, until sailing to Kalaupapa shortly before Father Damien’s death. She died there in 1918.

The Franciscan sisters remained on Molokai, continuing Father Damien’s work and establishing their own legacy of care. To this day, a Sacred Heart priest and two Franciscan sisters remain in Kalaupapa, maintaining the orders’ dedication to the settlement.

 

The day after his inauguration Mass, Pope Leo XIV had a closed-door meeting at the Vatican with U.S. Vice President JD Vance, who gave him a Chicago Bears jersey and a letter from U.S. President Donald Trump.

Vance delivered the letter from President Trump and his wife, Melania, before the start of the meeting, according to a video edited and released by Vatican Media. The short video clip showed Vance handing a large envelope to the pope, telling him it was a letter “from the president and first lady inviting you to come …”. The rest of the sentence was cut.

The vice president also met May 19 with Archbishop Paul R. Gallagher, Vatican foreign minister, after meeting with the pope, a Vatican statement said.

The Vatican press office released a communique outlining only what general themes were discussed during the “cordial talks held at the Secretariat of State” with Archbishop Gallagher. The two parties expressed their satisfaction with the “good bilateral relations” between them, and “the collaboration between church and state was discussed, as well as some matters of special relevance to ecclesial life and religious freedom.”

“Finally, there was an exchange of views on some current international issues, calling for respect for humanitarian law and international law in areas of conflict and for a negotiated solution between the parties involved,” the Vatican said.

Later May 18 Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio also met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who was also in Rome for the pope’s inaugural Mass.

Pope Leo XIV also met privately with Zelenskyy and his wife May 18, their second encounter of the day.

In fact, when the pope welcomed the president to his office attached to the Paul VI Audience Hall, a Vatican video clip included Pope Leo telling the president, “Nice to see you again.”

The Vatican press office said it did not have a statement about the meeting, but Zelenskyy thanked the pope in a posting on X.

“For millions of people around the world, the pontiff is a symbol of hope for peace. The authority and voice of the Holy See can play an important role in bringing this war to an end,” Zelenskyy posted.

Pope Leo and Zelenskyy had spoken by telephone May 12, and Pope Leo has already prayed publicly for the Ukrainian people several times, calling for “a just and lasting peace.”

The Vatican also offered to host direct discussions between Ukrainian and Russian representatives.

While Pope Leo XIV has deleted the account he began as Father Robert F. Prevost on Twitter, now X, in 2011, the Vatican has launched new accounts for him on X and Instagram.

“The Holy Father Leo XIV has chosen to maintain an active social media presence through the official papal accounts on X and Instagram,” said the Dicastery for Communication.

The first post on the “Pope Leo XIV @Pontifex” account on X was released May 14 and was a quote from his inaugural greeting to the public May 8 when he was elected:

“Peace be with you all! This is the first greeting spoken by the Risen Christ, the Good Shepherd. I would like this greeting of peace to resound in your hearts, in your families, and among all people, wherever they may be, in every nation and throughout the world.”

His first papal Instagram post featured the same quotation — in seven languages — alongside a photo of him greeting the crowd May 8 from the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica.

The @Franciscus account on Instagram, which has been archived, had more than 10 million followers.

The new @pontifex Instagram account of Pope Leo XIV had more than 13 million followers by May 16.

The number of followers on the English language X account had reached 18.6 million by May 16.

The Dicastery for Communication, which runs the accounts for the pope, said May 13 that while the Instagram account was new, Pope Leo “inherited the @Pontifex accounts on X that were used by Pope Francis, and before that by Pope Benedict XVI.”

The nine X accounts — in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, German, Polish, Arabic and Latin — have more than 52 million followers when combined.

The dicastery said the @Franciscus Instagram account would remain accessible online “as an ‘Ad Memoriam’ commemorative archive,” and the X tweets posted during the pontificate of Pope Francis will be available soon in an archive on the Vatican website.

Pope Benedict XVI launched the Twitter account in 2012, and the official Instagram account, @Franciscus, was added in 2016.

“Pope Francis’ presence on social media was significant. Around 50,000 posts were published across the @Pontifex and @Franciscus accounts, offering near-daily accompaniment throughout Pope Francis’ pontificate with short messages of an evangelical nature and exhortations in favor of peace, social justice and care for creation,” the dicastery said.

“The papal accounts stimulated widespread interaction, especially in difficult times,” the dicastery said. “In 2020, a year with exceptional data due to the pandemic, the late Pope’s messages were viewed 27 billion times.”

Even before he stepped out on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica and spoke May 8, Pope Leo XIV’s choice of a name was a powerful statement.

Following Pope Francis, who chose a completely new name in Church history, Pope Leo opted for a name steeped in tradition that also conveys an openness to engaging with the modern world.

The pope’s choice of name is a “direct recall of the social doctrine of the Church and of the pope that initiated the modern social doctrine of the Church,” Matteo Bruni, director of the Vatican press office, told reporters after the election of the new pope.

Pope Leo XIII, who was pope from 1878-1903, is known for publishing the encyclical “Rerum Novarum” on workers’ rights — considered the foundational document for the Church’s social teaching. The document emphasized the dignity of workers and condemned the dangers of unchecked capitalism and socialism.

The name Leo is a “direct” reference to “men and women and their work, also in the time of artificial intelligence,” Bruni said.

Pope Leo XIII also opened the Vatican secret archives to scholars, founded the Vatican observatory to demonstrate the Church’s openness to science and was the first pope to be filmed on a motion picture camera.

Tied to the new pope’s first words to the faithful: “May peace be with you all,” his namesake Pope Leo XIII was also a peacemaker who reconciled the Church with the governments of France, Russia, Germany and Great Britain during his pontificate.

Pope Leo’s name also has a Marian significance, since Pope Leo XIII wrote 11 encyclicals on the rosary and was also the first pope to embrace the concept of Mary as mediatrix — or female mediator — which holds that Mary helps distribute Christ’s grace through her intercession.

The first pope who took the name Leo became pope in 440. Known as “Leo the Great,” he promoted the doctrine of papal primacy based on succession from St. Peter and was a peacemaker who convinced Attila the Hun to turn back from invading Italy in 452.

Pope Leo X, pope from 1513-1521, was the last pope not to have been a priest at the time of his election to the papacy.

The new pope’s predecessor, Pope Francis, was the first pontiff since Pope Lando in 913 to choose an entirely new papal name. Before him, Pope John Paul I, elected in 1978, also broke with tradition by forgoing a numeral, though his name was a blend of his two immediate predecessors’ names.

By contrast, Leo is among the most frequently taken names by a pope, with only Benedict, Gregory and John having been chosen more often. Of the 13 previous popes named Leo, five are canonized as saints.

Cardinal Robert F. Prevost, the Chicago-born prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops under Pope Francis, was elected the 267th pope May 8 and took the name Pope Leo XIV.

He is the first North American to be elected pope and, before the conclave, was the U.S. cardinal most mentioned as a potential successor of St. Peter.

The white smoke poured from the chimney on the roof of the Sistine Chapel at 6:07 p.m. Rome time (11:07 a.m. Central) and a few minutes later the bells of St. Peter’s Basilica began to ring.

Around 7:30 p.m., the new Pope Leo came out onto the balcony, smiling and waving to the crowd wearing the white papal cassock, a red mozzetta or cape and a red stole to give his first public blessing “urbi et orbi” (to the city and the world).

“My dear brothers and sisters, this is the first greeting of the risen Christ, the good shepherd who gave his life for God’s flock,” he said, praying that Christ’s peace would enter people’s hearts, their families and “the whole earth.”

The peace of the risen Lord, he said, is “a peace that is unarmed and disarming.”

Signaling strong continuity with the papacy of Pope Francis, Pope Leo told the crowd that God “loves all of us unconditionally” and that the Church must be open to everyone.

“We are all in God’s hands,” he said, so “without fear, united, hand in hand with God and with each other, let us go forward.”

Telling the crowd that he was an Augustinian, he quoted St. Augustine, who said, “With you I am a Christian and for you a bishop.”

“Together we must try to be a missionary Church, a Church that builds bridges and always dialogues, that is always open to receiving everyone like this square with its arms open to everyone, everyone in need,” he said.

A longtime missionary in Peru, the 69-year-old pope holds both U.S. and Peruvian citizenship.

As prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops for the past two years, he was instrumental in helping Pope Francis choose bishops for many Latin-rite dioceses, he met hundreds of bishops during their “ad limina” visits to Rome and was called to assist the world’s Latin-rite bishops “in all matters concerning the correct and fruitful exercise of the pastoral office entrusted to them.”

During a talk at St. Jude Parish in Chicago in August, the then-cardinal said Pope Francis nominated him “specifically because he did not want someone from the Roman Curia to take on this role. He wanted a missionary; he wanted someone from outside; he wanted someone who would come in with a different perspective.”

In a March 2024 interview with Catholic News Service, he said Pope Francis’ decision in 2022 to name three women as full members of the dicastery, giving them input on the selection of bishops “contributes significantly to the process of discernment in looking for who we hope are the best candidates to serve the Church in episcopal ministry.”

To deter attitudes of clericalism among bishops, he said, “it’s important to find men who are truly interested in serving, in preaching the Gospel, not just with eloquent words, but rather with the example and witness they give.”

Three facts about new pope

• Pope Leo XIV reportedly enjoys playing tennis. According to a May 8 interview with his brother John Prevost, Pope Leo is a Chicago White Sox fan — and never cheered for baseball rival Chicago Cubs. “He was never, ever a Cubs fan,” the pope’s brother emphasized.
• The new pope speaks English, Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese and can read Latin and German.
• At age 69, Pope Leo is seven years younger than Pope Francis was when he was elected in 2013, and nine years younger than Benedict XVI when he was elected in 2005. He is 11 years older than St. John Paul II, who was 58, at his 1978 election.

Pope Leo to inaugurate papacy May 18

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Leo XVI will officially inaugurate his papacy with Mass in St. Peter’s Square May 18.

Although he was pope from the moment he accepted his election May 8, the inauguration Mass — which replaced the papal coronation after the pontificate of St. Paul VI — formally marks the beginning of his ministry with his reception of the fisherman’s ring and his pallium, a wool band worn around his shoulders.

The Vatican announced the date for the Mass May 9 along with events on his schedule for the rest of the month.

In a separate statement, the Vatican said the new pope has asked the heads of the dicasteries of the Roman Curia and the offices of Vatican City State to continue in their posts “on a provisional basis.” When Pope Francis died April 21, and when any pope dies, most of the top Vatican officials lose their positions, giving the new pope a chance to appoint his team.

For Catholics seeking a way to both honor the memory of Pope Francis and embrace the principles of his landmark encyclical “Laudato Si’, on Care for Our Common Home” — released a decade ago in May 2015  —   OSV News has gathered some practical tips and thoughts.

These come from the Vatican, a Jesuit expert in environmental sustainability and a lay Marianist whose grandmother taught him an ecological lesson or two.

And if you think just one person — instead of corporations, politicians and governments — can’t do anything significant to help the environment, Pope Francis had a “Laudato Si'” piece of advice: “There is a nobility in the duty to care for creation through little daily actions,” he observed, “and it is wonderful how education can bring about real changes in lifestyle.”

Reduce waste 

“A very practical way to start addressing ecological concerns is to see if we could reduce waste,” said Msgr. Robert Vitillo, senior adviser in the Vatican Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.

The dicastery sponsors the Laudato Si’ Action Platform, providing concrete ecological action resources for everyone: families; parishes and dioceses; educational institutions; health care services; organizations and groups; the economic sector; and religious orders and communities.

“The dicastery was very much involved in setting up the Laudato Si’ Action Platform,” Msgr. Vitillo explained. “This is the way we’re trying to make sure that we have more people involved in this, and committed to the ‘Laudato Si” encyclical … but also learning and sharing with each other. It’s another way to motivate more people to do this.”

The internet-based Laudato Si’ Action Platform invites members — of which there are more than 10,000 — to commit to various actions and activities based upon seven key goals stated in “Laudato Si'”: response to the cry of the earth; ecological economics; adoption of sustainable lifestyles; ecological education; ecological spirituality; community resilience and empowerment; and response to the cry of the poor.

Recycling 

“Are we still using throwaway plastic? If we are using plastic, then are we making sure we’re bringing those to be recycled?” asked Msgr. Vitillo. “Those kinds of things seem simple — but they often are avoided, because it might be a little bit of trouble having an extra garbage receptacle to collect these things and then bring them somewhere else. But that’s a way that we can start reducing waste.”

Food waste

Food waste can also be examined — leftovers may simply go into the trash, but the systems required to produce and dispose of food in the first place have an environmental impact.

“Do we need to take huge portions we’re not going to finish? Do we need to go to restaurants — especially in the United States — where they have tremendously large portions? It’s not good for us to eat that much,” said Msgr. Vitillo. “But it’s also important for us not to waste food as well.”

Likewise, if your food doesn’t have to travel far, fuel and energy is saved. “Many people commit themselves to eat only locally produced things,” he noted.

Eat less meat

Brother Mark Mackey, a Jesuit lecturer in environmental sustainability at Loyola University Chicago, said, “It’s good, first of all, to just say, ‘What is it that I even eat?’ In a given day, some of us might not give it a lot of thought,” he noted.

“The first step is to take an assessment — and maybe a look at our groceries. Eating lower on the food chain is one of the ways we can reduce how much impact our diet has,” he said.

In September 2011, the Catholic bishops of England and Wales reinstated the obligation for Catholics to abstain from eating meat on Fridays year-round, not just during Lent. A 2022 Cambridge University study —  “Food for the Soul and the Planet: Measuring the Impact of the Return of Meatless Fridays for (Some) UK Catholics” — found only a quarter of the U.K.’s four million Catholics complied. Nonetheless, the study projected that those who did so reduced 55,000 tons of carbon annually, or the equivalent of 82,000 fewer people flying round-trip from London to New York during the course of a year.

Prayer

“The fostering of an ecological spirituality is just critical. We can’t really have long-lasting change without that,” said Brother Mark

“How do we incorporate the planet and creation into our daily prayer and our understanding of our own story?” he asked. “We have this collective story and our salvation history that’s part of being Christian, being Catholic.”

Mindfulness and intentionality are another place to start.

“We need to bring it to the forefront of our daily life — whether it’s in the way we pray; whether it’s just in what we pay attention to,” suggested Brother Mark. “I really think it needs to be lived out in that way, as well as reducing our footprint perspective.”

Transportation

Considering transportation alternatives can also assist the environment. “Do we need to go in the car all the time? Could we use the bicycle? Could we walk more?” Msgr. Vitillo said.

Gardening

Planting trees and gardens, Msgr. Vitillo added, are both doable contributions to sustainability.

Advocacy

Msgr. Vitillo also suggested joining individual action with community action.

“It’s one thing doing this for ourselves and our family,” he said. “If we join others doing it, we may have even more enthusiasm and more energy and more motivation to do it — and we’re also able to impact a larger area.”

Education and advocacy, Msgr. Vitillo stressed, are essential.

“We need to have an ecological education — learn about what’s going on and how we contribute to it, and how we can resolve those situations,” he said. “We can advocate and give sound information, and hopefully help people to change their behavior.”

That change, said Brother Mark, does have to be, as suggested by Msgr. Vitillo, both personal and global.

“The solutions need to have individual action,” Brother Mark said. “But we have to recognize that any true, lasting change that we need to counteract climate change — as well as biodiversity loss — is going to have to be collective as well.”

He recognizes that it can be discouraging.

“It’s frustrating to just go to the policy and the global changes — the societal changes — that need to happen, because as an individual, we can be left feeling frustrated and saying, ‘These changes aren’t happening and what can I do?'”

For Matt Naveau — community coordinator of an effort that created Spiritus, a social justice mission-oriented lay community in Beavercreek, Ohio, molded in the tradition of the Marianist order — ecological inspiration was found within his own family, from his grandmother.

“The way that grandma lived her life —  sustainably, simply, in solidarity with others and anchored in prayer —   showed me how to live ‘Laudato Si” long before the encyclical was published,” Naveau told OSV News.

“It was only after grandma’s passing, as I re-read the encyclical and reflected on it with others, that I connected her life’s example with ‘Laudato Si’,'” he recalled. “I’ve been in many creation care conversations where the discussion is abstract, focused on buying less and wasting less and doing more to help those around us. These are all great, but I have often found it difficult to translate these ideas into my own life. When I finally connected grandma’s example to the discussion, suddenly the abstract concepts became tangible and realizable in my own life.”

As the Catholic Church welcomes its first American pope, here are 10 things to know about Pope Leo XIV, formerly Cardinal Robert F. Prevost.

1. Chicagoan: Pope Leo was born Sept. 14, 1955, and grew up in the south suburbs of Chicago. His father, Louis Marius Prevost, was an educator, and his mother, Mildred Martínez, was a librarian. He has two older brothers, was active in his childhood parish and his brother John says he is a White Sox fan (even though their mom was a Cubs fan). His family is reportedly of French, Italian and Spanish origin, with Creole heritage on his mother’s side. He loves the sport of tennis and plays regularly.

2. Cosmopolitan: While American, Pope Leo has a global perspective, having lived most of his adult life in Peru and Rome. Based on his assignments, it appears that he has spent less than five years combined living in the United States since his 1982 ordination to the priesthood.

3. Augustinian: He is a member of the Order of St. Augustine, a religious order that dates to 1244 and was founded to live the spirituality of early Christians. The order considers St. Augustine, a fifth-century theologian, philosopher and bishop of Hippo, its father. Before ordination, Pope Leo attended St. Augustine Seminary High School in Holland, Mich., and Villanova University near Philadelphia, both Augustinian institutions. Augustinians are mendicant, meaning that they traditionally survive on begging or their own work, do not hold property and do not spend their life in a single location. Pope Leo is the first Augustinian to assume the chair of Peter, and the second member of a religious order to do so in nearly two centuries — the first being the first Jesuit pope, Pope Francis.

4. Canonist: Pope Leo is a canon lawyer, having received his licentiate and doctorate in canon law from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, also known as the Angelicum, in Rome. He wrote doctoral thesis on “The role of the local prior in the Order of St. Augustine.” For nearly a decade he served the Archdiocese of Trujillo, Peru, as its judicial vicar, which oversees the diocesan tribunal. During that time he was also a professor of canon, patristic and moral law in the San Carlos e San Marcelo Major Seminary.

5. Leader: Pope Leo has an impressive range of leadership experience. After several pastoral and seminary formation roles in Chicago and Peru, he was elected in 1999 to oversee his order’s province in Chicago, and then two years later, he took the helm of the order worldwide. He was reelected for a second six-year term, ultimately holding the Rome-based position for 12 years. Then, in 2014, Pope Francis appointed him to oversee the Diocese of Chiclayo, Peru, a role he held for nine years and that included a year-long stint as the apostolic administrator of the Diocese of Callao, Peru, whose see city is nearly 500 miles south of Chiclayo. In 2023, Pope Francis appointed him as prefect of the Holy See’s Dicastery for Bishops, which oversees the appointments of bishops worldwide.

6. Baby boomer: At age 69, Pope Leo is seven years younger than Pope Francis was when he was elected in 2013, and nine years younger than Pope Benedict XVI when he was elected in 2005. He is 11 years older than St. John Paul II, who was 58 at his 1978 election.

7. Socially minded: His name is an apparent nod to Pope Leo XIII, who led the Church from 1878 until 1903 and is especially known for his 1891 encyclical “Rerum Novarum,” or “On the Condition of the Working Classes.” That document responded to the state of the industrial society at the end of the 19th century and cemented Pope Leo XIII’s position as the modern father of Catholic social doctrine. Pope Leo XIII also composed the popular St. Michael prayer, penned an 1879 encyclical calling for the rooting of Christian philosophy in the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas, and issued an 1899 apostolic letter condemning “Americanism,” a worldview he feared was held by American prelates that bolstered American values such as pluralism and individualism to the detriment of Catholic teaching.

8. Peace bearer: Pope Leo’s first words to the world were “Peace be with you” on a balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica overlooking masses of people in the square. “Beloved brothers and sisters, this is the first greeting of the Risen Christ, the Good Shepherd who has given his life for the flock of God,” he continued. “I, too, would like this greeting of peace to enter your hearts, reach your families, to all people, wherever they may be, to all peoples, to all the earth. … This is the peace of the Risen Christ, a disarmed peace and a disarming peace, humble and persevering. It comes from God, God who loves us all unconditionally.”

9. Polyglot: Pope Leo speaks English, Spanish, Italian, French and Portuguese, and he reads Latin and German. He gave his first greeting May 8 in Italian but switched to Spanish to greet the faithful of his former Diocese of Chiclayo before giving the “urbi et orbi” blessing in Latin. On May 9, he began his first public homily with English but preached most of it in Italian.

10. Successor of Peter: On his first full day as pope May 9, Pope Leo preached before the College of Cardinals who elected him, speaking of an exchange between Jesus and St. Peter, the first pope. He called the church “an ark of salvation sailing through the waters of history and a beacon that illumines the dark nights of this world. And this, not so much through the magnificence of her structures or the grandeur of her buildings — like the monuments among which we find ourselves — but rather through the holiness of her members.”

Cardinal Robert F. Prevost, the Chicago-born prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops under Pope Francis, was elected the 267th pope May 8 and took the name Pope Leo XIV.

He is the first North American to be elected pope and, before the conclave, was the U.S. cardinal most mentioned as a potential successor of St. Peter.

The white smoke poured from the chimney on the roof of the Sistine Chapel at 6:07 p.m. Rome time and a few minutes later the bells of St. Peter’s Basilica began to ring.

About 20 minutes later, the Vatican police band and two dozen members of the Pontifical Swiss Guard marched into St. Peter’s Square. They soon were joined by the marching band of the Italian Carabinieri, a branch of military police, and by units of the other branches of the Italian military.

As soon as news began to spread, people from all over Rome ran to join the tens of thousands who were already in the square for the smoke watch. Rome Mayor Roberto Gualtieri was among them.

French Cardinal Dominique Mamberti, protodeacon of the College of Cardinals, appeared on the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica at 7:12 p.m. He told the crowd: “I announce to you a great joy. We have a pope (‘Habemus papam’),” saying the cardinal’s name in Latin and announcing the name by which he will be called.

Cardinals over the age of 80, who were not eligible to enter the conclave, joined the crowd in the square. Among them were Cardinals Seán P. O’Malley, the retired archbishop of Boston; Donald W. Wuerl, the retired archbishop of Washington; and Marc Ouellet, retired prefect of the Congregation for Bishops.

A longtime missionary in Peru, the 69-year-old pope holds both U.S. and Peruvian citizenship.

La Repubblica, the major Italian daily, described him April 25 as “cosmopolitan and shy,” but also said he was “appreciated by conservatives and progressives. He has global visibility in a conclave in which few (cardinals) know each other.”

That visibility comes from the fact that as prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops for the past two years, he was instrumental in helping Pope Francis choose bishops for many Latin-rite dioceses, he met hundreds of bishops during their “ad limina” visits to Rome and was called to assist the world’s Latin-rite bishops “in all matters concerning the correct and fruitful exercise of the pastoral office entrusted to them.”

The new pope was serving as bishop of Chiclayo, Peru, when Pope Francis called him to the Vatican in January 2023.

During a talk at St. Jude Parish in Chicago in August, the then-cardinal said Pope Francis nominated him “specifically because he did not want someone from the Roman Curia to take on this role. He wanted a missionary; he wanted someone from outside; he wanted someone who would come in with a different perspective.”

In a March 2024 interview with Catholic News Service, he said Pope Francis’ decision in 2022 to name three women as full members of the dicastery, giving them input on the selection of bishops “contributes significantly to the process of discernment in looking for who we hope are the best candidates to serve the Church in episcopal ministry.”

To deter attitudes of clericalism among bishops, he said, “it’s important to find men who are truly interested in serving, in preaching the Gospel, not just with eloquent words, but rather with the example and witness they give.”

In fact, the cardinal said, Pope Francis’ “most effective and important” bulwark against clericalism was his being “a pastor who preaches by gesture.”

In an interview in 2023 with Vatican News, then-Cardinal Prevost spoke about the essential leadership quality of a bishop.

“Pope Francis has spoken of four types of closeness: closeness to God, to brother bishops, to priests and to all God’s people,” he said. “One must not give in to the temptation to live isolated, separated in a palace, satisfied with a certain social level or a certain level within the church.”

“And we must not hide behind an idea of authority that no longer makes sense today,” he said. “The authority we have is to serve, to accompany priests, to be pastors and teachers.”

As prefect of the dicastery then-Cardinal Prevost also served as president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, where nearly 40 percent of the world’s Catholics reside.

A Chicago native, he also served as prior general of the Augustinians and spent more than two decades serving in Peru, first as an Augustinian missionary and later as bishop of Chiclayo.

Soon after coming to Rome to head the dicastery, he told Vatican News that bishops have a special mission of promoting the unity of the church.

“The lack of unity is a wound that the church suffers, a very painful one,” he said in May 2023. “Divisions and polemics in the church do not help anything. We bishops especially must accelerate this movement toward unity, toward communion in the church.”

In September, a television program in Peru reported on the allegations of three women who said that then-Bishop Prevost failed to act against a priest who sexually abused them as minors. The diocese strongly denied the accusation, pointing out that he personally met with the victims in April 2022, removed the priest from his parish, suspended him from ministry and conducted a local investigation that was then forwarded to the Vatican. The Vatican said there was insufficient evidence to proceed, as did the local prosecutor’s office.

Pope Leo was born Sept. 14, 1955, in Chicago, Ill. He holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the Augustinian-run Villanova University in Pennsylvania and joined the order in 1977, making his solemn vows in 1981. He holds a degree in theology from the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago and a doctorate from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome.

He joined the Augustinian mission in Peru in 1985 and largely worked in the country until 1999 when he was elected head of the Augustinians’ Chicago-based province. From 2001 to 2013, he served as prior general of the worldwide order. In 2014, Pope Francis named him bishop of Chiclayo, in northern Peru, and the pope asked him also to be apostolic administrator of Callao, Peru, from April 2020 to May 2021.

The new pope speaks English, Spanish, Italian, French and Portuguese and can read Latin and German.