Latin American bishops excited about Pope’s “homecoming” trip

The bishops of Uruguay, Argentina, and Peru do not hide their excitement over the upcoming visit of Pope Leo XIV, scheduled from November 6 to 17. 

Leo will be visiting three countries, and ten cities. He begins his journey in Uruguay, leaving on November 8 for Argentina. From November 11 to 16, he will be in Peru, arriving back in Rome on November 17.

During an online conference, one from each of the host countries, spoke about the specific realities and challenges Leo XIV will find when he arrives.

Cardinal Daniel Sturla, the Archbishop of Montevideo, in Uruguay, explained that his small country stands in contrast to the rest of Latin America, being the most secularized.

“Over the past century, since 1929, Uruguay has gone through a period of strong secularism. Only 33 percent of Uruguay’s 3.5 million people identify as Catholics; 28 percent believe in God but do not belong to a specific church; and another 28 percent are agnostic or atheists, with 11 percent claiming a different religion.”

This leads to peculiar phenomena. “For example, we kept Christian celebrations, but they were given different names. Christmas is the Day of the Family, and Easter is the Week of Tourism.”

In this environment, he said, “the Church is free to operate, but it occupies a secondary place. Our Church is poor and small, but free and beautiful. Being a priest here is a service offered with modesty. There is no prestige attached, which leaves the priest free to lead a normal life and be devoted to his tasks.”

“We are waiting for the Pope with much hope and love, and closely cooperating with the state,” the Cardinal told those who attended ACN’s conference.

Argentina focused on youth

Even though Pope Francis was Argentinian, it has been almost 30 years since the country last received a Papal visit.

Auxiliary bishop Alejandro Musolino of Cordoba, in Argentina, says the local Church is expecting a massive turnout of youths, and wants to give them the best opportunities to meet the Pope.

“We just had the 52nd youth pilgrimage to Our Lady of Luján, on the first weekend of October, and around 2.8 million people participated. We need to make it possible for all the young people to meet the Pope, so we are having three large outdoor masses: one in Buenos Aires, another in Córdoba, and another in Luján.”

The bishop, who is also on the National Bishops’ Commission for Youth, said he can sense “that there is a positive feeling there, young people who are not finding truth in globalization or on social media, and are trying to find a purpose in life and in faith.”

“During the pandemic we hit rock bottom in many respects – including young people’s mental health. Today, spiritual strength is a source of hope. Above all, the fact that the Church created spaces where young people can take the lead seems to have helped them feel they belong, that their voices matter, that their actions matter, and that the missionary spirit is vital. It seems these are key aspects that are coming to the fore, and we want to continue nurturing them so that they may flourish.”

Argentina has a population of close to 46 million people, of whom approximately 63 percent are Catholic.

“He is coming home…”

Perhaps the greatest excitement over this trip is being felt in Chiclayo, the diocese of which Pope Leo was bishop of for eight years when he lived in Peru. His successor, Bishop Edinson Farfán, faces challenges that are different from those faced by his brother bishops in Argentina and Uruguay.

“He is coming home when he comes to Peru. We don’t need to introduce the country to him; he knows everything about the Peruvian Church,” he told the ACN conference.

Bishop Farfán believes the Pope will be perfectly equipped to address the specific problems of a country in which close to 80 percent of the 35 million inhabitants identify as Catholic.

“The first thing he will do is convey a message of communion, building bridges, dialogue, and encounter. This will be one of the most important topics. In all his speeches, he will speak about communion, and as a good Augustinian, when he does so, his message will be grounded in the Trinitarian mystery.”

“He will also talk about the Amazon – in fact, he will be the first Pope to celebrate Mass in the Peruvian Amazon. Peace is also a very important topic to him, and he will encourage us to work for peace, and he will speak about the problems the country has, such as the struggle against corruption and organized crime, and efforts to strengthen democracy,” the bishop concluded.

Pope Leo has just undergone surgery to remove a malignant nodule on his lung. The Vatican has said that the planned trip to Latin America remains on the agenda, but all the bishops who spoke made it clear that the first priority should be his health.

“We are looking forward to this visit with much hope and joy. We hope the Pope will feel better soon; we pray for a speedy recovery; and we hope that he enjoys his visit, because we are going to enjoy his being here,” said the auxiliary bishop of Cordoba.

“But we want him to enjoy us also, and to confirm us in the faith, and for that, we want him to come in good health, and when he feels up to it.”

A continent of vibrant faith

The continent Pope Leo will be visiting is one of the most vibrant in terms of Catholicism in the modern age.

During the press conference Luis Vildoso, ACN’s director of projects for Latin America, provided some context on the upcoming visit. “About 48 percent of the world’s Catholics are located in the Americas, and this region also has 72 mission territories, which is higher than any other region where the Church is present. Of these, 18 are located in a single country — Peru — which has 10 territorial prelatures and eight apostolic vicariates.”

“Regarding priests, in Latin America, a priest has to care for or accompany 7,500 Catholics, whereas in Africa, which is another continent experiencing a great flourishing, that number is much lower, as it is in the United States. 

In Cuba, a priest has to accompany an average of 20,000 faithful, and in Honduras, 14,000. Compounding this reality are the vast territories, huge distances, the Andean region, the Amazon, and major cities — all of which lead us to recognize that this remains a priority region. 

The Church in Latin America has a crucial role to play and a vital contribution to offer to the universal Church,” Vildoso explained.

New York Nuns Rebuke the 12 Bishops Who Prayed Over Trump

The Sisters of Charity of New York answered the 12 bishops who prayed over President Donald Trump on Saturday morning, and they headlined their answer with a single word: “AUTHORITY.”

The order has served New York since 1817, when three sisters arrived in Manhattan to open an orphanage. 

In a statement posted to Instagram, the sisters granted the point the bishops keep making in their own defense. Christians are called to pray for those who govern them. Then they asked what the Oval Office video left out.

“Where was the concern for the poor? For immigrant families being torn apart? For those suffering beneath the violence of war? For the marginalized whose dignity is threatened? For Christianity being distorted into an instrument of political power?”

“These are not partisan concerns,” the sisters wrote. “They are Gospel concerns.”

What the world was shown

On Thursday, Oct. 22, Denver Archbishop James Golka laid his hand on Trump’s shoulder at the Resolute Desk while 11 fellow bishops extended theirs, with the televangelist Paula White-Cain standing behind the president’s chair.

A White House communications adviser posted the 27-second clip that afternoon, and Trump’s campaign account shared it too. The midterm elections are 12 days away.

The sisters were careful about what they could not see. “We cannot know everything said behind closed doors,” they wrote. “But we know what the world was shown.”

What the bishops have said since has done little to change the picture. Bishop Scott Bullock of Rapid City told the National Catholic Reporter that the gathering “really was not intended to be a political meeting per se.”

He also told the paper that a Heritage Foundation representative invited him, and that “the USCCB was not unaware of this meeting” (a claim the conference’s own spokesperson, Chieko Noguchi, has contradicted by saying its leadership was never informed).

Eleven of the 12 bishops did not answer NCR’s questions at all.

Golka spoke to his own archdiocesan paper instead. NCR reported Saturday that he acknowledged many viewers took the video as an endorsement and called that “never my intention.” He said he was heartbroken that people were hurt.

In the same breath, he faulted “people intentionally using this moment to sow disunity,” and as I reported Friday, he stopped short of an apology.

The Sisters of Charity anticipated that defense. “Images carry messages,” they wrote. “Silence carries messages, too.”

The women who spoke first

Few Catholics in America have earned the right to say so more than these women. The Sisters of Charity nursed Civil War wounded in New York, ran St. Vincent’s Hospital in Greenwich Village, and cared for AIDS patients there when much of the country recoiled from them.

Today the order numbers about 123 sisters, with an average age of 86. They still stand outside the Delaney Hall detention center in Newark, and they pay for passports so that the American-born children of detained parents can stay in the country.

Their statement named that history plainly. Women religious, they wrote, “have served the Church without the institutional power granted to its hierarchy,” and when conscience demanded it, they “challenged the very institutions to which we belonged.”

The Church has a long memory of women doing exactly that. Catherine of Siena, a laywoman with no office, wrote to Pope Gregory XI in Avignon and urged him back to Rome; he returned in 1377, and she is now a Doctor of the Church.

In 1979, Sister Theresa Kane stood before John Paul II at the National Shrine in Washington and asked him to hear the women of this country. None of them held a bishop’s crozier, yet each acted on a baptism that made her responsible for the Church she loved.

Canon law says as much.

The faithful “have the right and even at times the duty” to make their views known to their pastors on matters touching the good of the Church, according to canon 212. When shepherds fail to lead, the baptized are called to stand up and speak, and Catholic women have answered that call for centuries.

Leo’s Church

Pope Leo XIV has prepared his Church for a moment like this one. In his first weeks as pope, he named Sister Tiziana Merletti secretary of the Vatican office that oversees religious life. This June, he chose Montse Alvarado to run the Dicastery for Communication, and on June 30, he made Sister Alessandra Smerilli prefect of the dicastery responsible for migrants and the environment.

Women now lead three of the Vatican’s 16 dicasteries, two of them Leo’s own picks. Just two of Donald Trump’s 15 department secretaries are women, which means, as I wrote in June, that the pope has put a larger share of women atop his government than the president has atop his.

Think about that for a moment.

The Holy See office charged with defending immigrant families is led by a religious sister, appointed by an American pope, while a dozen American bishops posed for a campaign video with the president whose deportation machine the U.S. bishops’ conference has repeatedly condemned.

The women around him reach further still. Sister Raffaella Petrini, whom Leo confirmed in May 2025 as president of the Governorate of Vatican City State, runs the city-state itself, and in February he added her to the Commission on Reserved Matters. 

On the night of his election, he blessed Sister Nathalie Becquart, the French undersecretary of the Synod of Bishops and the first woman ever to vote in a synod, at the Palace of the Holy Office.

In this fight, an aging order of nuns in the Bronx sounds far more like Leo than the men who gathered around the Resolute Desk.

That is why so many Catholics refused to stay quiet this week. More than 1,800 people have now signed our letter asking the 12 bishops to apologize to the people of God and to Pope Leo XIV.

Watching ordinary Catholics find their voices these past few days has been one of the most inspiring things I have seen since Leo’s election.

We are doing this to protect our Church and to protect our pope. Trump has spent months attacking Leo, and his White House has now used Catholic bishops as props in the final stretch of a campaign.

Our baptism does not allow us to shrug at that.

The sisters closed their statement with a line every bishop in America should read before the November meeting in Baltimore.

“Our first allegiance is not to a president, a political party, or even an institution,” they wrote. “It is to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

Bishop Paprocki misses the mark in his latest column (Opinion)

In Springfield, Bishop Paprocki’s latest column shepherding his flock not to cast votes for the "evil" Democrats, he once again uses his legal skills to mislead, misrepresent and misdirect. This time, he builds a straw man argument on the surge of Social Democrats in American politics.

The Sept. 28 column, "A warning from history: Are we forgetting the lessons of the  past?" is an attempt to sound the alarm that we are entering a similar era to what was found in 1930s and '40s Nazi Germany and that the platform of the Democratic Socialists of America is to destroy our government.

The bishop builds his argument using references from right-leaning editorials in Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal. 

I would advise anyone reading the Bishop's column to educate themselves from a variety of sources.

What I found on the Democratic Socialists’ view on the role of government is that it's basically three-fold:

• Public Control: Democratic socialists want the government to run or heavily regulate essential services like healthcare, housing, education and public transit.

• Market Regulation: They support higher taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals to fund universal social programs and reduce economic inequality.

• Democratic Systems: Rather than destroying or shrinking the state, they seek to use democratic political systems and public institutions to shift control of major economic drivers away from private corporations and toward ordinary citizens. 

A further search identifies that the core principles of Democratic Socialism are:

• Regulated Capitalism: Private property and competitive markets remain the basis of the economy, but the government uses taxes and regulations to prevent extreme inequalities.

• Welfare State: The government provides strong social safety nets, including universal healthcare, public education, and support for the unemployed or elderly.

• Democratic Values: Social democracy operates strictly within a multi-party, representative democratic system and rejects violent revolution or totalitarian control.

• Social Justice: Core values include freedom, legal and social equality and solidarity to ensure all citizens have a fair chance at a secure life.

This sounds like a platform everyone in America could support and how anyone would equate the Social Democrats of America to the German Nazi party is beyond me!

California Catholic bishop argues against ‘indiscriminate nature’ of ICE raids

A Fresno City Council member said deportations have reduced school attendance and cut back on worker participation. Others have pointed out that detentions, even those of U.S. citizens, have stoked fear among the larger Hispanic populace.

Human rights advocates have said the raids are meant to discourage voter turnout, while ICE spokespeople have claimed the department merely “enforces the law of the nation across the country, including California.”

Roman Catholic Bishop Joseph V. Brennan, leader of the 1.2-million diocese of Fresno, attempted to add a spiritual element to the discussion earlier this month.

Catholics have used Scripture to argue for and against deportations and strict immigration enforcement.

Brennan issued a letter offering guidance from a Catholic perspective. He pushed back against the “indiscriminate nature” of raids and added that the Catholic Church “will not be silent” and “will accompany our vulnerable neighbors in concrete, sustained ways.”

Essential California asked the bishop about his letter and the church’s role in the immigration debate while checking in with a couple of Catholic scholars who offered their perspectives.

What did Brennan write?

Brennan, who served at St. Linus in Norwalk and the Cathedral at St. Vibiana in downtown L.A. en route to becoming bishop, said congregations “have been taken away abruptly and with little or no information coming from federal agents.”

“Our country and our elected officials must do better,” Brennan wrote. “We need tangible results that reflect meaningful and just immigration reform. Until such reform is achieved, the dignity of our immigrant brothers and sisters must remain in the forefront of whatever shape our efforts might take.”

Brennan said his letter was based on direction offered by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in November. In their letter, the bishops attempted to balance human dignity and a right for governments to humanely protect borders.

Does the Catholic Church advocate for open borders?

Brennan said human dignity and national security are not in conflict and both are possible if people of good will work together.

“October is Respect Life Month in the Catholic Church,” he said. “Much like we advocate for the dignity of life when we urge women to not have abortions, we are also advocating for that same dignity of life when we accompany our migrant brothers and sisters.”

The Conference of Catholic Bishops said as much in November, recognizing that “nations have a responsibility to regulate their borders and establish a just and orderly immigration system for the sake of the common good.”

Father William O’Neill, a Jesuit priest and director of immigration ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, argued that the Church has never advocated for open borders.

“I’d say that’s a primary misunderstanding,” O’Neill said. “The recognition that the state, by its very nature, has a right to control its borders has always been a part of Catholic social teaching.”

He, along with San José Bishop Oscar Cantú and Markkula colleague David DeCosse, penned an opinion piece in May for the National Catholic Reporter noting that those for and against deportations often rely on dueling biblical scriptures.

“These biblical mandates neither require ‘open borders’ nor prohibit deportation,” the trio wrote.

O’Neill noted that the church strives to find a middle ground, “to have a safe and legal pathway [to stay] in accordance with international law.”

The Catholic Church’s message is arguing against cruelty

Cecilia Gonzáles-Andrieu, professor of theology and human rights at Loyola Marymount University and the former president of the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the United States, said that Catholics in favor of indiscriminate mass deportations are ignoring basic church teachings.

“We have a particular time right now in the United States and a particular set of suffering people, and we don’t get to say, well, now we’re just gonna pretend this isn’t happening,” she said.

She said the U.S. bishops were clear in their letter that beyond indiscriminate mass deportations, they also called for an end to “dehumanizing rhetoric and violence.”

“What we’re talking about needing to be eliminated are the extremes,” she said. “We’re talking about extreme and purposeful cruelty, which goes against the bedrock principles for Catholics — the sanctity of life and the family.”

Gonzáles-Andrieu said this cruelty spills over and affects U.S. citizens.

“I have young students who are fearful of being racially profiled, and I’m personally scared for my 92-year-old father,” she said. “Because if you look Latino or Latina, you are now open to being terrorized.”

Anglican priests abandon Ibezim, back primate as Ezeofor holds first service

The Anglican Diocese of Awka has witnessed a fresh development in its ongoing leadership crisis as priests of the diocese reportedly rallied behind the Primate of the Church of Nigeria, Anglican Communion, following the first service conducted by Samuel Ezeofor, the newly appointed supervising bishop, at St. Faith’s Cathedral.

The service on Wednesday marked a significant development in the dispute between Alexander Ibezim and the leadership of the Church of Nigeria over the administration of the diocese.

The development comes after Henry Ndukuba, Primate of the Church of Nigeria, reportedly directed Ibezim to proceed on a compulsory six-month leave to allow an investigation into allegations against him.

However, Ibezim reportedly rejected the directive and through Nwofor, the diocesan chancellor, challenged the appointment of Ezeofor as the supervising bishop of the diocese.

Despite the opposition, Ezeofor proceeded with the service at St. Faith’s Cathedral, where priests in attendance reportedly reaffirmed their allegiance to the Primate and the Church of Nigeria.

The clergymen also reportedly rejected the position taken by the diocesan board under Ibezim, which opposed Ndukuba’s decision.

Their reported stance signals a deepening divide over the authority responsible for overseeing the affairs of the diocese, with the Primate’s directive emerging as a central point of contention.

In a move aimed at restoring peace and unity, Ezeofor directed every church in the diocese to nominate between four and five persons to serve as stakeholders in a reconciliation process.

The initiative is expected to provide a platform for consultations among members of the diocese and encourage dialogue towards resolving the leadership dispute.

The crisis has raised concerns about unity and stability within the Anglican Diocese of Awka, as the opposing positions of Ibezim and the Church of Nigeria’s leadership continue to shape developments in the diocese.

Ezeofor’s first service and the reported reaffirmation of allegiance by priests represent a new chapter in the dispute, with attention now turning to the proposed reconciliation process and the next steps in resolving the crisis.

As events unfold, the ability of the Church’s leadership and stakeholders to pursue dialogue and respect the applicable ecclesiastical procedures will be crucial to restoring lasting peace and unity within the diocese.

The leadership crisis has been accompanied by heightened security presence around the Diocese, with the Anambra State Police Command earlier assuring residents that additional personnel would be deployed to maintain peace and order.

Tochukwu Ikenga, the Police Public Relations Officer, had stated that the Command was prepared to strengthen security arrangements in the area to prevent any breakdown of law and order.

“The presence of the security operatives is to ensure that there is no breakdown of law and order at the Cathedral, and the Command has urged the warring factions to be law-abiding and not to take the laws into their hands,” Ikenga said.

He further stated that the Command had no support or sympathy for any of the factions, adding that it would not allow miscreants to exploit the situation to commit crimes.

'The priest is still chasing me' - Newcastle dad speaks about lifelong torment after childhood abuse

Abused repeatedly by the perverted priest entrusted with his care, Michael Ord suffered the trauma of his ordeal in silence for four decades. Too young to fully understand what had happened to him, the dad told no-one how Father David Taylor had repeatedly assaulted him.

But after pushing the horror of the abuse to the back of his mind and getting on with his life it eventually came flooding back, destroying his mental health and eventually costing him his job and home.

Taylor was finally jailed for 13 years in 2022 after Michael reported what he did to him, between the ages of eight and 13, to police in 2019. But before getting justice the now 54-year-old had to endure reliving his ordeal during two "brutal" crown court trials.

And today Michael has bravely waived his legal right to anonymity to lift the lid on the devastating lifelong impact child sex abuse has on victims.

The dad-of-one said: "I had blocked it out and I just tried to get on with my life, then it just exploded out of nowhere. I have had years of absolute hell."

Raised as a devout Catholic, in Walker, Newcastle, Michael and his family regularly attended the St Anthony of Padua Catholic Church, on Welbeck Road where Taylor was a priest. When Taylor offered to take Michael on retreat trips to Holy Island his family thought nothing of it and trusted their priest completely.

But it was during one of these trips that the abuse began, when Michael was just eight.

"We were devoted Catholics, we went to the church twice a week," Michael explained. "When I was going to the church he was always there. He would come to the house, he was a family friend."

"When it first happened he took us away to Holy Island. It was a trip away. My mam and dad let us go away and stay the whole weekend. They trusted him because of who he was. He would take us out of my bed and put us in his bed. Every night he used to take us away."

The abuse occurred regularly until Michael was in his early teens. But he kept it to himself.

"I was only eight. I was so young I didn't full understand. I didn't tell anybody. I just put it to the back of my mind," he said. "I tried to tell my mam and dad. I wanted to tell them. I told my mam to ask me. "

In 2009 the Chronicle reported how Taylor had been jailed for two-and-a-half years for indecent assaults on boys committed in the 1980s. Michael says at the time his mum defended the priest.

"My brother came to the house with the Chronicle and told my mam he had been jailed for two-and-a-half years," he said. "She didn't believe it. She was defending him."

Burying his pain deep inside Michael got on with his life. He worked hard driving concrete mixers and became a father.

But in 2019, for reasons Michael will never understand, Taylor's action suddenly began to torment him.

"In 2019 I started having nightmares that I was in his house and he was abusing us," he explained. " I was waking up at 3am in the morning. It just exploded out if nowhere. "I told my brother, I said; 'I'm having nightmares, I'm waking up with a priest abusing us. I feel like I have been abused'."

Michael's brother encouraged him to contact police and Taylor w as eventually arrested and charged. But Michael would face a long wait for justice and went through a harrowing deal as he relived his abuse during two crown court trials after a jury failed to reach a verdict in the first.

"It was absolutely brutal," he said. "They said I would only be on the stand for half an hour, but I was up for five and a half days having to go through it all. It was so brutal I couldn't even say my name. I had never been to court before."

Taylor was found guilty of ten offences of indecency with a child and indecent assault. As he was jailed Newcastle Crown Court heard how the abuse happened in a church vestry in an old convent and during a trip to a football tournament, as well as on Holy Island. Prosecutor Vince Ward said: “These were religious venues where he would have expected to be safeguarded but wasn’t.”

Judge Julie Clemitson sentenced Taylor, of Angel Lane, Alnwick, Northumberland, to 13 years in prison and said he sign the sex offenders register for life. The judge told him he’d had a sexual interest in boys from an early stage in his career, having been ordained in 1977.

And speaking of the assaults Michael endured, the judge told Taylor: "There were so many occasions he can’t recall them. It seems to him there were hundreds of them because it happened so often in various places. He lived with the memories of what happened for decades. He couldn’t tell his parents because they thought so highly of you and it would be devastating for them.

“Throughout this long process you have protested your innocence, saying you had no recollection of him. That clearly can’t be true. His victim impact statement describes the devastating impact your abuse has had for the last 40 years – that’s almost the entirety of his life he has had to live under the shadow of what you did to him as a child.

“He was particularly vulnerable due to his age, where he was – in the vestry on his own and away from home at Holy Island, separated from others in your bedroom. "

Michael said after Taylor was sentenced he collapsed outside crown court.

"I was still in shock," he said. "I just cried. I couldn't stop crying. I had five years of absolute hell."

Yet seeing Taylor punished brought little relief to Michael, who says his mental health has continued to deteriorate. Following the trial he was admitted to the Fellside Ward at St Nicholas Hospital in Gosforth, Newcastle. And he is now living in a hostel after losing his home of 37 years.

"My mental health got worse and worse," he said. "As my mental health deteriorated I was so bad I had two psychiatrists and five psychiatric nurses. They said it was the worst thing they had ever seen. When the psychiatric nurses came to the house I was running round in circles, I said the priest is chasing us."

"I live in a hostel now, I lost my house. I have worked most of my life I was a driver, I used to drive concrete mixers and I had to give up work because of my mental health. It's been terrible.

"Right now the priest is still chasing us."

Diocese of Lafayette places priest on leave amid decades-old misconduct claims

The Diocese of Lafayette has placed Rev. Barry Crochet on administrative leave after learning of allegations of misconduct dating back many years, according to the diocese’s Office of Communications.

According to the diocese’s website, Crochet is the pastor at St. Joseph Church and Our Lady of Victory Church, both in Loreauville.

Diocese officials said they reported the allegations to civil authorities and added Crochet will remain on leave while those authorities investigate.

“Recognizing the profound pain that such situations cause, our immediate prayers and deepest concerns are with all parties involved,” the diocese stated.

Diocese leaders explained that the decision reflects their commitment to transparency, safety, and justice.

Officials noted that Crochet, like anyone accused, is presumed innocent unless proven otherwise, but pointed out the well-being of the community and the integrity of the investigation remain the top priorities.

The diocese also asked the community to keep those affected in their thoughts.

Chicago priest reinstated after investigation into allegation of sexual abuse of minor: Archdiocese

A Chicago priest has been returned to ministry after an investigation into an allegation of sexual abuse of a minor, the Archdiocese of Chicago said.

In July, the Archdiocese of Chicago sent letters to multiple church communities after Father Kenneth Fleck was accused of sexual abuse more than 30 years ago at Our Lady of Peace Parish.

He has served at parishes in Oak Lawn, South Holland, Tinley Park and Chicago.

Cardinal Blase Cupich, archbishop of Chicago, sent a letter to multiple parishes Saturday to inform them of Father Fleck's reinstatement after the Independent Review Board's investigation.

"After receiving the results of their thorough investigation, the IRB determined that there is not a reasonable cause to believe Father Fleck sexually abused the person making the accusation," the letter read in part. 

"They recommended that he be returned to ministry and that this file be closed. I have accepted their determination and recommendations."

Father Fleck denied the allegations during the investigation.

Saturday's notice that Fleck has been reinstated was sent to Saint Barnabas Parish in Chicago, Saint Catherine of Alexandria Parish in Oak Lawn, Christ Our Savior Parish in South Holland, Saint George Parish in Tinley Park, Saint Josephine Bakhita Parish in Chicago and Saint Katherine Drexel Parish in Chicago.

Virginio Bressanelli, emeritus bishop of Neuquén, dies at the age of 84

Msgr. Virginio Domingo Bressanelli, bishop emeritus of Neuquén (Argentina) and superior general of the Priests of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (Dehonians) from 1991 to 2003, passed away on the morning of Friday, October 23, at the age of 84. 

According to AICA, he had been hospitalized for more than a month after suffering a stroke at the end of August.

The news was announced by the Dehonian congregation and by the Diocese of Neuquén, which, in its statement, thanked God “for his life, his pastoral dedication, and his witness of faith, which deeply marked our Church in Neuquén.” 

Bressanelli was born on May 1, 1942, in Berabevú, in the south of Santa Fe province. He made his perpetual profession in the Dehonian congregation on September 29, 1964, and studied Philosophy in Monza (Italy) and Theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, where he earned a licentiate in Dogmatic Theology in 1967. He was ordained a priest in Rome on December 17, 1966, according to EWTN News.

Before his episcopal appointment, he served as vicar at the parish of the Holy Christ in Villa Riachuelo, as well as formator and superior of the Dehonian Theologate and provincial superior. From 1991 to 2003, he led the Priests of the Sacred Heart of Jesus as superior general, a position that required him to reside in Rome for many years.

John Paul II appointed him bishop of Comodoro Rivadavia on February 19, 2005. Five years later, on February 10, 2010, Benedict XVI named him coadjutor bishop of Neuquén, and in November 2011 he became the fourth bishop of that diocese, following the resignation of Bishop Marcelo Melani. His episcopal motto was “Here I am, O God, to do your will.”

In the Argentine Episcopal Conference, he served as first vice-president from 2011 to 2014 and chaired the Commission for Consecrated Life. He submitted his resignation due to age in 2017 and, as bishop emeritus, continued to accompany the Diocese of Neuquén.

The Argentine Episcopal Conference expressed its condolences in a letter addressed to the Diocese of Neuquén and the Dehonian family. 

In it, the bishops remembered him as “a shepherd who generously gave his life to the service of the Gospel and the Church,” and highlighted his commitment to the universal Church, as well as his wisdom and his ability to accompany his brother bishops, especially those facing difficulties.

New York, close to an $800 million agreement over abuses

The Archdiocese of New York has reached a preliminary agreement to pay more than $800 million to some 1,300 people who claim to have suffered sexual abuse by clergy and lay leaders, according to The New York Times on Saturday. 

The plaintiffs’ attorneys announced late Friday that the deal was closed and had the approval of all those affected, but the archdiocese’s spokesperson, Joseph Zwilling, responded that same night that the parties were still working to finalize it: “We’re not there yet.”

According to the New York newspaper, the agreement provides each plaintiff with a minimum one-time payment of $250,000, an amount that could increase once the severity of each case is reviewed. 

In addition, the archdiocese would commit to publishing on its website the names of clergy and lay leaders against whom credible allegations exist and to keeping that list updated. The Times adds that the settlement could allow the archdiocese to avoid filing for bankruptcy.

To persuade the few plaintiffs who were reluctant to accept, the archdiocese negotiated with one of its insurers to improve the terms: $20 million to be distributed equally among them. 

The plaintiffs’ attorneys warned them that, without an agreement, the archdiocese would likely end up filing for bankruptcy, which would reduce compensation and prolong the litigation for years. Among the holdouts, the Times reports, are heirs of deceased complainants.

The proposal was made public on May 1 of this year, when the archdiocese offered about $800 million to settle the claims, according to NY1. Talks began under Cardinal Timothy Dolan and have continued with Archbishop Ronald Hicks, who took possession of the see in February. 

The archdiocese has publicly stated that its fund for these cases amounts to about $300 million, and the agreement would not extend to religious orders not under its jurisdiction.

The case joins other major settlements in the United States. In June of this year, the Archdiocese of San Francisco agreed to pay $395 million to more than 530 people, and in 2024 the Archdiocese of Los Angeles settled for more than $1 billion. 

The volume of claims has led several U.S. dioceses to file for Chapter 11, such as the Diocese of El Paso, whose case was already reported by InfoVaticana.

Alvarado: "I did not run," on his arrival at Communication

Montse Alvarado will assume the prefecture of the Dicastery for Communication of the Holy See on November 1 and will become the first laywoman to preside over a dicastery. 

This was explained by the former president of EWTN News in an interview with presenter Colm Flynn on the program «EWTN News In Depth,» whose full transcript was published by the National Catholic Register on October 24, just days before she takes office.

Alvarado, born in Mexico City and settled in the United States since childhood, was appointed by Leo XIV on June 2, as reported by InfoVaticana, and will succeed Paolo Ruffini. 

The Pope received her in audience on August 3, according to the bulletin of the Holy See Press Office. Before her time at the Catholic network, which she joined in 2021, she worked for fourteen years at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.

In the interview, Alvarado stated that she was not on the Holy See’s radar and that the appointment was not the result of her own candidacy: «I did not apply. I was not chosen,» she affirmed. She added that «the fact that God can use me as an instrument for something so great is incredibly humbling,» and described her career as «a surrender to Jesus Christ and His Church.» When asked if it was a personal aspiration, she replied: «No, but it is what I am called to do.»

Regarding the reasons for her selection, she suggested that the Pope was looking for «a clear, next-generation professional» and expressed her desire to «fill that gap,» although she clarified that she does not believe that is the reason. 

She linked her arrival to EWTN’s collaboration with the Holy See in major events, including the live dialogue of Leo XIV with young people from Indianapolis in November 2025. Of the Pontiff, she said that «he is a great listener» and that he has asked them to «enter into dialogue.»

Regarding her role, she stated that «communicating Christ to the world is the mandate of the dicastery» and that her role consists of receiving a vision and executing it: «I am very willing to receive it and to execute it.» 

She also explained that they will apply analytics to better understand the needs of the Church, acknowledged that she works in Italian because she knows it is important, and admitted that she is «one who pushes hard.» In response to criticism of her position, she noted that «every Catholic who has read the Catechism and the Bible knows what I believe.»

The portal Silere non possum, for its part, published an article on October 24 stating that Alvarado’s arrival at Palazzo Pio marks the end of ordinary activity in the dicastery after Ruffini’s years. 

According to the outlet, the future prefect has already reviewed the dicastery’s organizational charts with the Pope and reportedly said that she has no intention of «dismantling anything» and that she is in a listening phase. 

The text, clearly critical in tone toward the outgoing team, is an assessment by the outlet itself: it maintains that there are people in positions that do not correspond to them and that those who have treated the offices as their own will have a harder time from November 1. Alvarado has not announced any specific changes.

The dicastery coordinates the media of the Holy See, including Vatican News, L’Osservatore Romano, the Press Office, and the Vatican publishing house. 

At 39 years old, Alvarado will be the youngest prefect of the Roman Curia.

Schneider: St. Pius V "canonized" the traditional rite of the Mass

Auxiliary Bishop of Astana (Kazakhstan), Athanasius Schneider, delivered a homily on Saturday, October 24, at the Basilica of Saint Mary Major in Rome during the pontifical Mass in the traditional Roman rite of the Ad Petri Sedem pilgrimage. 

In it, he maintained that Saint Pius V “in a certain sense canonized the traditional rite of the Mass” and asked the Virgin to grant the Church “the longed-for liturgical peace.” 

The full text of the homily has been published by Advaticanum.

The celebration took place at Saint Mary Major because the Secretariat of State did not authorize the pilgrimage Mass to be celebrated this year at Saint Peter’s Basilica, as it did in 2025 at the Altar of the Chair. 

InfoVaticana has followed the matter since the letter from the Secretariat of State became known, which specified that the Mass could not be celebrated at Saint Peter’s “this year,” as well as the prohibition on entering the Vatican basilica in procession on the same Saturday.

Schneider began by placing the celebration in Mary’s house and recalling that saints and pontiffs celebrated Mass in that basilica, among them Saint Ignatius of Loyola and Pius XII. He started from the idea that “the Church is a mother because there is another Mother” and recalled Pope Francis’s devotion to the Salus Populi Romani icon, before which he prayed on numerous occasions and beside which he chose to be buried.

The bulk of the homily focused on Saint Pius V. According to the bishop, the pontiff solemnly guaranteed, through the apostolic constitution Quo Primum, the perpetual use of the traditional form of the Mass by all priests of the Roman rite. 

“Thus, Saint Pius V in a certain sense canonized the traditional rite of the Mass,” he stated, and added that no Roman Pontiff has ever dared to revoke or “de-canonize” that constitution.

Schneider then referred to the faithful who wish to participate in this liturgical form, particularly the young. He affirmed that there exists in them “a legitimate desire to participate in holiness in the traditional form” and that they feel treated as second-class Catholics, although, he clarified, “they harbor no bitterness.” 

In that context, he recalled that this form of the Mass was the one of Francis’s youth, and stated that it was “the Mass of his conversion.”

The bishop supported his argument with words from two pontiffs. From John Paul II he cited a reference to the humility and reverence of the rite of Saint Pius V, and from Pope Francis he quoted a phrase about adoration in the Eastern Churches: “We have lost a bit the sense of adoration. The Eastern Churches preserve it; they adore God.” 

According to the homily, Francis added that “time does not matter; God is at the center. And this is a treasure.”

Schneider concluded by invoking the Virgin as Queen of Peace. He asked her to “restore the full and unrestricted use of the traditional form of the Roman rite” and to bring to the Church the long-awaited liturgical peace.

The pilgrimage program also included, on Friday, pontifical Vespers at Santa Maria ad Martyres, the Pantheon, presided over by Schneider himself, and on Sunday, Masses of thanksgiving at San Giovanni Battista dei Fiorentini and at the Most Holy Trinity of the Pilgrims. 

The organizers expressed regret that the main Mass could not be celebrated at Saint Peter’s.

Cardinal Paolo Romeo, Archbishop Emeritus of Palermo, dies

Cardinal Paolo Romeo, Archbishop Emeritus of Palermo, died on the morning of Sunday, October 25, at the age of 88, after a long illness, at the “San Marco” Hospital in Catania, according to a statement from the Archdiocese of Palermo. 

In June he had been admitted to the same hospital, and the Sicilian Church had then promoted moments of prayer for his recovery.

The Archbishop of Palermo, Corrado Lorefice, invited prayer and recollection “entrusting his soul to the Lord, who will know how to reward him for the commitment with which he served his Church.” The Sicilian Episcopal Conference also expressed its condolences and asked the dioceses of the island to offer suffrages for the cardinal.

The lying in state will be set up on Tuesday, October 27, starting at 9:30 a.m., in the Cathedral Basilica of Acireale, his hometown, where a prayer vigil will be held at 8:00 p.m. The funeral will take place in the same cathedral on Wednesday, October 28, at 11:00 a.m., according to Vatican News.

Romeo was born in Acireale, in the province of Catania, on February 20, 1938, and was the fifth of nine siblings. He was trained at the seminary in his city and in 1959 was sent to Rome as a student at the Almo Collegio Capranica, where he obtained a licentiate in Theology from the Gregorian University and a doctorate in Canon Law from the Lateran University. He was ordained a priest on March 18, 1961.

In 1967 he entered the diplomatic service of the Holy See and served in the pontifical representations in the Philippines, Belgium and Luxembourg, the European Communities, Venezuela, Rwanda and Burundi. 

In 1976 he returned to the Secretariat of State, to the then Council for the Public Affairs of the Church, from where he followed Catholic life in Latin America and the activity of CELAM.

In 1983 he was appointed titular Archbishop of Vulturia and Apostolic Nuncio to Haiti, and received episcopal ordination from the hands of John Paul II in St. Peter’s Basilica on January 6, 1984. 

He later served as nuncio in Colombia (1990-1999) and in Canada (1999-2001), and in 2001 he began representing the Pope in Italy and the Republic of San Marino, a post he held until 2006.

On December 19, 2006, Benedict XVI appointed him Archbishop of Palermo and Primate of Sicily, and he solemnly entered the archdiocese on February 10, 2007. 

The same Pope created him a cardinal in the consistory of November 20, 2010, with the title of Santa Maria Odigitria of the Sicilians. He participated in the conclave of March 2013 that elected Francis, and on October 27, 2015, he became Archbishop Emeritus of Palermo.

InfoVaticana already reported on his career when he turned 80 and lost the right to vote in a possible conclave. 

With his death, the College of Cardinals loses one of the cardinals created by Benedict XVI in 2010.

Pope Leo XIV: love for God must overflow into love for one's neighbor

Pope Leo XIV stated this Sunday, during the Angelus prayed in St. Peter’s Square, that “we cannot truly love God if this love does not overflow into love for our brothers and sisters.” 

The Pope commented on the passage from the Gospel of Saint Matthew in which a teacher of the Law asks Jesus what the greatest commandment is, and the Lord summarizes it by citing Deuteronomy, according to the text published by the Holy See.

In his reflection, the Pontiff emphasized that it is not enough to recognize that God exists, that He is the only one, or that He is almighty. “The Lord seeks a personal relationship with us: the one true God wants to become our God,” he said. From there, he explained that the commandment of love is not an imposition, because “one cannot love on command.” Human love is authentic when it responds to God’s love, which, he added, “always precedes us,” and demands a total gift of heart, soul, and mind.

Pope Leo XIV then focused on the second commandment, “you shall love your neighbor as yourself,” which, he explained, springs from the same source as the first. Whoever lives close to God learns to look at themselves and others with the eyes of Christ, so that selfishness is overcome “and even love of oneself becomes charity.” Therefore, he concluded, we cannot truly love our neighbor except as children of the same Father who first loved us in His Son Jesus.

The Pope also quoted Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus, for whom only love makes the members of the Church act. Without it, he warned, faith would be deprived of its essence, good works would be reduced to moralism, and hope would be in vain. He ended by asking for all “the grace of a new heart, capable of embracing and living the greatest of the commandments,” and entrusted that petition to the Virgin Mary, in whose Immaculate Heart “there is nothing but love.”

After the Marian prayer, Pope Leo XIV expressed his concern over the grave humanitarian situation in Yemen, particularly in Taiz, and called for an end to hostilities and respect for the population’s right to live in peace. He also joined in the grief for the victims of the terrorist attack against the Orthodox Church of Saint George in Hamoud, Jordan, carried out last Friday, and expressed his closeness to that community.

The Pope also recalled that on October 27, leaders of Churches and religions will gather in Assisi to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the meeting convened by Saint John Paul II, and asked that the Lord inspire decisions of dialogue and peace. 

Finally, he greeted groups from Spain, Ireland, and Poland, protocol officials from Italian ministries, the association “Solidarietà in Buone Mani” from Castiglion Fiorentino, and a group of friends from Concorezzo celebrating their seventieth anniversary.

This Angelus comes one week after the first one following the lung operation the Pope underwent on October 13 at the Gemelli Polyclinic, during which the Pontiff reappeared in public to give thanks.

Georgetown University’s Updated Clerical Abuse Webpage Omits Multiple Survivors’ Allegations

Georgetown University’s updated Title IX webpage dedicated to clerical sex abuse now includes Fr. Alvaro Ribeiro, S.J., but omits the multiple allegations of his sexual misconduct The Hoya publicized last week.

The new webpage, which was changed immediately after The Hoya published its investigation, only notes that Ribeiro resigned after a 2010 university investigation, passing over three public allegations of additional misconduct in the 15 years prior. 

To experts and survivors, that nominal language reaffirms Georgetown’s apparent unwillingness to publicly recognize or adequately address misconduct.

Last week, The Hoya confirmed that Ribeiro faced at least four sexual misconduct allegations while at Georgetown — three detailed in The Hoya’s reporting, and at least one that led to the university inquiry and his resignation. 

The Hoya’s investigation was the first public report of a Jesuit engaging in sexual misconduct at Georgetown after being placed on leave following similar issues.

Steven Slawinski (CAS ’97), who accused Ribeiro of sexually harassing and groping him in the mid-1990s, said Georgetown’s webpage changes feel like “lip service.”

“It really makes me disappointed in Georgetown,” Slawinski told The Hoya. “It sends a message that they’re covering their ass, and that they’re circling the wagons and they’re not really concerned about this as a problem.”

Experts said the Jesuits’ internal reporting structure, which does not require them to relay conduct reports to university officials, likely allowed Ribeiro to quietly return to campus. 

Because of that, it remains unclear if Georgetown ever knew about the three misconduct cases before the 2010 investigation.

On the new Title IX page, Georgetown lists its novel April agreement with the local Jesuit province to ensure misconduct reports are “appropriately shared” with the university.

But the site’s vague language is the exact same as the university’s statement to The Hoya last week, which came six months after the agreement was first established and which survivors of Ribeiro’s alleged misconduct condemned as insufficient.

Slawinski said The Hoya’s reporting forced Georgetown’s hand.

“I think they wouldn’t have made the changes had the article not come out, and it’s very vague about what they’re going to do” Slawinski said.

Georgetown’s public admission comes over two decades after John, another survivor who is referred to by a pseudonym, reported Ribeiro’s alleged misconduct to the local Jesuit province and seven years after a third survivor reported it directly to university officials.

John said Georgetown must confront its years-long silence, in part by adding his allegations to the webpage.

“It makes it seem like it’s less severe than it is,” John told The Hoya. “If you’re going to do it, then provide all the information.”

“I thought I did my job by reporting him,” John added.

Slawinski said Georgetown has continued to disrespect survivors.

“It felt pretty dismissive to me and to the other men that came forward,” he said.

The Society of Jesus placed Ribeiro, who died in 2013, on leave in 1998 after John reported him for sexual harassment, alleging that the priest offered him pornography and shook his penis in front of him. 

A year after Ribeiro returned to campus in 2000, he met another student who later alleged similar misconduct, including that Ribeiro attempted to kiss him after he graduated.

Ribeiro resigned after a 2010 university investigation found he had engaged in “unwanted touching of students” and “other inappropriate behavior.” None of the three survivors The Hoya spoke with spurred this inquiry.

A university spokesperson did not respond to comment requests for this story, but said last week that Georgetown officials “condemn in the strongest possible terms any clergy abuse.”

“We are committed to ensuring that University policies are as strong as possible in supporting survivors,” the spokesperson wrote to The Hoya.

John Fortunato, a Fordham University professor who researched university responses to the Catholic Church’s clerical sex abuse crisis, said Georgetown’s response to The Hoya’s reporting does little to rebuild community trust.

“When you get into an institutional crisis such as this, and one that’s not born out of a single incident, but a repeated pattern, the benefit of the doubt has been taken away,” Fortunato told The Hoya.

“It can’t be a one-time solution,” he added. “It’s got to be continuous corrective actions.”

Georgetown’s conduct, Fortunato said, has not met these standards.

The new Title IX webpage also removed the “ongoing work” section that The Hoya disclosed was outdated. That section used to list a board of directors working group aimed at addressing clerical sex abuse that former University President John J. DeGioia (CAS ’79, GRD ’95) established in 2020. 

Now, the webpage says the working group became a subcommittee in 2021, but no such committee is listed on the board’s website.

Slawinski said the update remains unconvincing.

“Georgetown is hiding behind this vague, nebulous subcommittee that doesn’t seem to have any rules or numbers, and now they’re saying that its investigation has wrapped up,” Slawinski said. “I’m glad that they added Ribeiro as one of the people that they are concerned about, but I think this goes a lot deeper than just two priests and something on their website.”

The previous Title IX webpage acknowledged students’ sexual misconduct allegations against the late former Provost J. Donald Freeze, S.J., but did not list any of the “Georgetown 14” — the Georgetown-affiliated Jesuits named in the local Jesuit province’s 2018 list of priests credibly accused of sexually abusing minors. 

None of those Jesuits’ alleged misconduct occurred during their tenures at Georgetown.

Ribeiro is now listed beneath Freeze, and the Georgetown 14 remain absent from the site.

Georgetown made no public statement recognizing The Hoya’s recent reporting, and did not announce the changes to the Title IX webpage. 

For experts and survivors, that lack of transparency raises serious concerns about compliance with the university’s new information-sharing agreement.

Keith Rohman, a workplace misconduct and Title IX investigator, said “appropriately” in the April agreement is a “weasel word” that allows Georgetown and Jesuits to tailor misconduct protocols to their private interests.

“It’s that word which suggests a level of control, and the Catholic Church hasn’t earned the right to make that judgment on their own,” Rohman told The Hoya.

The Boston Globe first publicized how the Catholic Church systematically concealed sexually abusive priests in 2002 by relocating accused priests without notifying the public. 

Since then, thousands of suvivors across the country have raised sexual abuse allegations against Catholic clergy.

Slawinski said he does not trust the April protocol, calling on Georgetown to publish the full agreement with the Jesuits.

“I think that should be transparent,” Slawinski said. “Who receives it? Is it the Title IX coordinator or campus minister or the rector?”

When asked by The Hoya for additional details about the protocol’s compliance mechanisms, the university spokesperson only gave its formal title and ignored other questions.

Fortunato said when institutions face misconduct patterns, new protocols are not enough. Instead, he said, universities must respond directly to survivors’ concerns.

“In this particular incident, this would be installing reporting procedures and then also instilling a confidence that something’s going to be done,” Fortunato said.

“Without those steps, that corrective action, I don’t think you’re getting that trust back — and in fact you’re further eroding it,” Fortunato added.

For Slawinski, Georgetown’s lackluster response has done little to address his core goal, which has remained the same since he first reported Ribeiro in 2018. He has received no reassurance, he said, that what happened to him would not happen to someone else.

“Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, and it’s difficult to discount this pattern,” Slawinski said.

Rome reporter's new memoir sheds light on why Vatican reform remains tricky

Early on during the Francis papacy, I sat at dinner with a cardinal and listened to him vent his frustration at the Vatican's sclerotic bureaucracy and resistance to change. 

Pope Francis had been elected to reform the institution and even then there were signs that this would be no easy task, that the system was too entrenched. 

"What would it take for things to change?" the cardinal was asked. 

"Heads on pikes lining the Tiber," he replied without pause.

Things in Rome may appear one way to outsiders, but — like the city itself — dig a little bit and get to know the right players, and a different reality emerges. 

A riveting new book offers a glimpse behind the curtain, unveiling the people, places and processes that make Italy tick.

The cardinal's memorable quip came to mind reading Jason Horowitz's new memoir, The Italian Job, chronicling nearly a quarter-century of living and reporting on Italy.

For nearly a decade, Horowitz — who is a friend and former colleague from my time as the National Catholic Reporter's Vatican correspondent — served as the New York Times' Rome bureau chief. 

He brilliantly covered all the complexities of life in a country where organizational personnel changes are almost impossible to make, where the word "accountability" doesn't even really exist in Italian and where new laws are made in order to circumvent existing laws.

"A country known for its history of enormous creativity was now risk averse, conservative, and frankly a little uninspiring," writes Horowitz explaining the paralysis and dysfunction that often seems to plague the country today. 

The same could be said for the Vatican's institutional culture, as that cardinal lamented over a decade ago.

While Horowitz's chronicles of life in il bel paese isn't Vatican-centric, it conveniently serves as a guide to understanding why Vatican reform remains a perennial challenge in a country where tradition reigns supreme and innovation often feels like a relic of the past.

When Pope Benedict XVI became the first pontiff to voluntarily resign in 600 years, he did so at a moment of crisis. 

Financial mismanagement and clerical abuse scandals had burdened his papacy and he admitted he lacked the strength to govern. Enter Francis, who was elected in 2013 riding what was widely considered a reform mandate.

Twelve years later, the reform he delivered wasn't overwhelmingly bureaucratic in nature, but rather shifting the perception of the church in the world around it. 

Now, hopes remain high that the Chicago-born Pope Leo XIV can introduce some American-style management to what at its core is still an Italian institution — for better and for worse.

Horowitz was on the ground for all of the highs and lows of the Francis papacy and he writes comedically but without condescension about it all. The Italian Job is a love letter to Italy but not because of la dolce vita. 

That would sell the country short. It's because this Jewish kid from Queens, New York, took seriously the wisdom that Pope John Paul II would often repeat to seminarians: "Imparare Roma" — learn Rome.

The book is chock-full of amusing tales of Horowitz sipping spritzes with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, the "bunga bunga" parties that defined the Berlusconi era, and jet-setting around Europe with Steve Bannon, who helped galvanize the resistance to Francis among traditionalists (including with the support of some of the pope's own cardinals).

More sobering are Horowitz's accounts of floodwaters threatening Venice; the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, where the health crisis first began in Europe; and his attempts to understand Italy's plummeting fertility rates and rapidly aging population and what this demographic winter might mean for its future. If Italy is a country that often feels stuck in the past, for Horowitz it's also a land that allowed him to see into the future, giving him a glimpse into the rise of right-wing populism, immigration debates and climate change.

Especially moving is when Horowitz takes off his reporter's cap and writes personally about the illness of and eventual death of his father and the personal toll that a foreign correspondent endures trying to build a home in one's adopted country while being separated from one's own. 

He then puts that cap back on by trading correspondence with Francis about aging and mortality, visiting Sardinia's "blue zone" with a high population of centenarian residents, and talking to the former head of the Vatican's Pontifical Academy of Life, Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, who makes a convincing case that limits, including death, help to provide meaning to one's life. 

The archbishop laments to Horowitz that much of the world seems to have lost a sense of intergenerational solidarity, but Rome, Paglia observed, challenges that trend.

That reality is put on full display in a chapter where Horowitz takes readers along on his journeys on the papal plane traveling around the world with an increasingly elderly and vulnerable Francis. 

Once, on a trip to Cyprus that took place during Hanukkah, Horowitz had the entire press corps laughing when he gave a confused Francis gelt and a dreidel — and encouraged him to take up a game with the cardinals. 

There's also a humorous account of Horowitz getting berated by a Vatican press officer after he failed to board a bus in conflict-ridden South Sudan because he'd gotten caught up in a conversation with a local warlord. 

(What's not included in the book — because Horowitz is a mensch and wouldn't want to heap praise on himself — is how that evening, after the events of the day had concluded and some of us Vatican reporters were relaxing on the hotel rooftop, he sent over a round of beers to our handlers to make amends for earlier in the day and toast their efforts to keep us safe.)

At a recent book launch event at New York's Rizzoli Bookstore, Horowitz recalled some of these adventures and told his New York Times colleague Maggie Haberman that Francis was similar to former U.S. President Bill Clinton in that being around people is what gave them both energy and purpose.

For Francis, he continued, there was special attention to the peripheries — marginalized, suffering and overlooked people — and these international travels brought this into special focus.

"You can't help but be changed by that," Horowitz told the crowd.

As he said that, I thought back to that South Sudan rooftop where Francis had brought the world's media to the world's youngest country to spotlight efforts to preserve a fragile peace after a bloody civil war. 

Who wouldn't want to raise a glass to such an effort?