In a speech during a meeting with Pope Tawadros II, the head of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, and other Coptic Orthodox representatives on May 11, 2023, Pope Francis announced that the Coptic Orthodox martyrs killed by ISIS in 2015 will be added to the Catholic Church’s official list of saints. / Credit: Vatican Media Vatican City, Jun 14, 2023 / 13:17 pm (CNA). Catholic-Orthodox relations took a step forward this month with the publication of the first joint statement in seven years.The document said Pope Francis’ hope for a synodal Church promotes “a more effective synodality,” which could eventually bring the Catholic and Orthodox Churches closer together on the issue.It also quoted Pope Francis’ words in the 2013 apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, that “in the dialogue with our Orthodox brothers and sisters, we Catholics have the opportunity to learn more about the meaning of episcopal collegiality and their experience of synodality.”The joint statement, on “Synodality and Primacy in the Second Millenium,” gives an overview of the history of the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches from the Great Schism of 1054 to today.According to the statement, it “strives to give as far as possible a common reading of that history, and it gives Orthodox and Roman Catholics a welcome opportunity to explain themselves to one another at various points along the way.”The document concludes by “drawing lessons from the history that has been surveyed,” including that “major issues complicate an authentic understanding of synodality and primacy in the Church.”“The Church is not properly understood as a pyramid, with a primate governing from the top, but neither is it properly understood as a federation of self-sufficient Churches,” the statement says.“Our historical study of synodality and primacy in the second millennium has shown the inadequacy of both of these views,” it continues. “Similarly, it is clear that for Roman Catholics synodality is not merely consultative, and for Orthodox primacy is not merely honorific.”The theological dialogue commission released the joint statement following its 15th plenary session in Alexandria, Egypt, June 1–7.Ten Orthodox Churches were represented at the meeting, which was attended by 18 Catholic commission members.The previous joint statement of the commission, which was published in 2016 after a meeting in Chieti, Italy, examined the state of the Christian Church in the first millennium after Christ.“Today,” the 2023 document says, “there is an increasing effort to promote synodality at all levels in the Roman Catholic Church. There is also a willingness to distinguish what might be termed the patriarchal ministry of the pope within the Western or Latin Church from his primatial service with regard to the communion of all the Churches, offering new opportunities for the future.”The joint statement called for Roman Catholics and Orthodox to continue along a path of dialogue in charity in order to come to an authentic understanding of synodality and primacy “in light of the ‘theological principles, canonical provisions, and liturgical practices (Chieti, 21)’ of the undivided Church of the first millennium.”

This photograph taken on June 11, 2023, shows the statue of the late Pope John Paul II at the entrance to the Gemelli hospital in Rome. Pope Francis underwent an operation for an abdominal hernia on June 7, 2023, at the Rome hospital. / Credit: ALBERTO PIZZOLI/AFP via Getty Images Rome Newsroom, Jun 14, 2023 / 07:30 am (CNA). Pope Francis’ doctors expect the pope to be discharged from the hospital “in the next few days,” according to the Vatican.The 86-year-old pope is currently recovering in Rome’s Gemelli Hospital one week after he underwent a three-hour surgery for an incisional hernia. A team of surgeons removed scar tissue and operated on a hernia in the pope’s abdominal wall at the site of a previous surgical incision.Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said June 14 that the hospital’s medical staff have reported that the pope’s recovery is “proceeding regularly, without complications, and are therefore planning to discharge him in the next few days.”Bruni added that the pope has been working from the hospital’s papal medical suite, where he also spent time in prayer in its small chapel and received the Eucharist.The Vatican has canceled all of the pope’s public and private audiences until June 18.Dr. Sergio Alfieri, who operated on Pope Francis on June 7, has said that from a medical point of view, he believes there would be nothing preventing the pope from continuing with his planned travels to Portugal and Mongolia in August after his recovery.

Students at the Polytechnic University of Turin built the satellite that launched on a Falcon 9 rocket from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on June 12, 2023. / Credit: Holy See Press Office Rome Newsroom, Jun 13, 2023 / 11:30 am (CNA). A satellite with Pope Francis’ words was successfully launched into space on Monday.The “Spei Satelles” mission, Latin for “Satellites of Hope,” launched on a Falcon 9 rocket from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on June 12.According to the Vatican, the miniature satellite, called a CubeSat, “is now en route to a heliosynchronous orbit, approximately 525 km [.62 miles] above the Earth’s surface.”“After months of intense work, we eagerly awaited the moment when Spei Satelles would reach the launch pad,” said Sabrina Corpino, the leader of the students at the Polytechnic University of Turin who built the satellite.“Once the launch took place,” she said, “the students realized that their hard work had truly reached space, and they had contributed to the creation of a real space mission.”Students build the satellite for the “Spei Satelles” mission, Latin for “Satellites of Hope,” launched on a Falcon 9 rocket from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on June 12, 2023. Credit: Holy See Press OfficeThe miniaturized satellite, which can now be deployed into orbit from the rocket, holds a copy of a book documenting the pope’s urbi et orbi blessing of March 27, 2020, when, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, he blessed the world from St. Peter’s Square with the words “Lord, may you bless the world, give health to our bodies, and comfort our hearts.”“You ask us not to be afraid,” the pope prayed. “Yet our faith is weak and we are fearful. But you, Lord, will not leave us at the mercy of the storm.”The book, “Why Are You Afraid? Have You No Faith? The World Facing the Pandemic,” has been converted into a nanobook, a 2-millimeter by 2-millimeter by 0.2-millimeter silicon plate, for transport to space.Pope Francis blessed the satellite and the nanobook after his weekly public audience in St. Peter’s Square on March 29.The Vatican said March 27 the CubeSat would travel aboard a Falcon 9 rocket, SpaceX’s partially reusable two-stage launch platform. It will be hosted on the ION SCV-011ION platform, a satellite carrier developed and built by the Italian company D-Orbit.The Italian Space Agency will operate the satellite, which was built by the Polytechnic University of Turin.The “Spei Satelles” mission, Latin for “Satellites of Hope,” launched on a Falcon 9 rocket from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on June 12, 2023. Credit: Holy See Press Office“The satellite is equipped with a radio transmitter as well as onboard instruments to be maneuvered from the ground,” a press release stated.While in orbit, the satellite will broadcast decipherable statements from Pope Francis in English, Italian, and Spanish on the theme of hope and peace.The president of the Italian Space Agency, Giorgio Saccoccia, said the Holy See asked the agency to

Ultima Generazione (Last Generation) climate change activists Ester Goffi (right) and Guido Viero (second right) arrive at the Vatican on May 24, 2023, to attend their second hearing for having glued themselves to the statue of "Laocoon and His Sons" at the Vatican Museums in August 2022. / Credit: TIZIANA FABI/AFP via Getty Images Vatican City, Jun 13, 2023 / 10:30 am (CNA). Vatican judges on Monday found two climate activists guilty of criminally damaging the base of an important statue in the Vatican Museums during a protest last year.As part of the conviction, Guido Viero, 61, and Ester Goffi, 26, were ordered to pay a combined approximately $30,390 in damages to Vatican City State. They were also ordered to pay $1,080 for the Vatican’s defense and, together with a third defendant, an unspecified amount in trial costs.Viero and Goffi were additionally each given suspended fines of $1,620 and suspended sentences of nine months in prison. The suspensions are lifted if the crime is committed again within five years.Viero and Goffi superglued their hands to the marble base holding Laocoön and His Sons, an ancient marble sculpture on display in the Vatican Museums, on the morning of Aug. 18, 2022. They were found guilty of aggravated damage to the base of the statue through the use of “particularly tough and corrosive synthetic adhesive.”Laura Zorzini, who video-recorded the demonstration in the Vatican Museums, was also given a suspended fine of $129.The three are part of Ultima Generazione (“Last Generation”), an Italian group that encourages nonviolent civil disobedience to “raise the alarm on the climate emergency.”“The sentence today in Vatican City: 9 months in prison for one gram of glue. An exaggerated sentence that does not want to recognize the dramatic nature of the situation that motivates all our protests,” the group wrote on Twitter after the conviction June 12.Ultima Generazione is soliciting donations to help Viero and Goffi pay their personal legal fees and the more than $30,000 in damages awarded to Vatican City State.The climate group is also behind other recent high-profile protests in Italy, including throwing carbon black in Rome’s Trevi Fountain and Four Rivers Fountain in May.On May 23, about a dozen members of the group threw mud at Rome’s Senate building while two members put mud on their bare chests to protest what they said was the government’s complicity in disastrous flooding in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy last month.

Pope Francis poses for a photo with a group of young people after his general audience Aug. 17, 2022. / Pablo Esparza/CNA Vatican City, Jun 13, 2023 / 10:00 am (CNA). Pope Francis has said that the rise in teen suicides points to a deeper spiritual poverty in our culture today that leads young people to believe they are failures.In his message for the 2023 World Day of the Poor, the pope wrote that he could not fail to mention “an increasingly evident form of poverty that affects young people.”“How much frustration and how many suicides are being caused by the illusions created by a culture that leads young people to think that they are ‘losers,’ ‘good for nothing,’” he said.“Let us help them react to these malign influences and find ways to help them grow into self-assured and generous men and women.”Suicide is the second-leading cause of death among Americans between ages 10-14 and 20-34. Data released this year by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 22% of high school students reported seriously considered attempting suicide in 2021.The pope warned that a culture of “haste” can prevent us from stopping to care for others. He added that Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan “continues to challenge each of us in the here and now of our daily lives.”“It is easy to delegate charity to others, yet the calling of every Christian is to become personally involved,” Pope Francis said.The pope noted that youth are particularly vulnerable to cultural changes that have led people to “disregard anything that is unpleasant or causes suffering and exalt physical qualities as if they were the primary goal in life.”“We are living in times that are not particularly sensitive to the needs of the poor. The pressure  to adopt an affluent lifestyle increases, while the voices of those dwelling in poverty tend to go unheard,” he said.Pope Francis established the World Day of the Poor in 2016 at the end of the Catholic Church’s Jubilee Year of Mercy. The day is celebrated each year on the 33rd Sunday of Ordinary Time, a week before the feast of Christ the King.The seventh World Day of the Poor will be celebrated on Nov. 19 with the theme “Do not turn your face away from anyone who is poor,” taken from the Book of Tobit 4:7.In the message, signed on the June 13 feast day of St. Anthony of Padua, the pope highlighted how “dramatic price increases” have further impoverished many families. “If a family has to choose between food for nourishment and medical care, then we need to pay attention to the voices of those who uphold the right to both goods in the name of the dignity of the human person,” he said.Pope Francis also lamented problems affecting workers, including “the inhumane treatment meted out to many male and female laborers; inadequate pay for work done; the scourge of job insecurity; and the excessive number of accident-related deaths, often the result of a mentality

Dr. Sergio Alfieri (left), Pope Francis' surgeon, and Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruno hold a press conference Saturday, June 10, 2023, at Gemelli Hospital in Rome. / Credit: Vatican Media Rome Newsroom, Jun 12, 2023 / 10:15 am (CNA). The Vatican said Monday that Pope Francis is working from the hospital as he recovers from hernia surgery.Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni told journalists on June 12 that Pope Francis’ “postoperative progress continues to be normal” five days after the pope underwent a three-hour surgery for an incisional hernia.Bruni added that the pope is eating regularly, has received the Eucharist daily, and has begun working from the hospital.On Sunday, the pope watched Sunday Mass on television and received the Eucharist in his hospital room before praying the Angelus in the chapel in the papal medical suite and eating lunch with some hospital staff.The 86-year-old pope is expected to remain recovering in Rome’s Gemelli hospital for the next week. The Vatican has canceled all of the pope’s audiences until June 18.While working from the hospital, Pope Francis sent a message to the European People’s Party, the largest political party in the European Parliament, and sent a condolence telegram to the family of former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who died on Monday, June 12.

St. Pope John Paul II greets former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. / Vatican Media Vatican City, Jun 12, 2023 / 09:45 am (CNA). Pope Francis expressed his condolences Monday after the death of former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.Berlusconi died on June 12 at the age of 86. He had been hospitalized in Milan for leukemia treatments since Friday.The Italian billionaire media baron was Italy’s longest-serving head of government. He was first elected in 1994 after founding the Forza Italia political party, but an investigation into corruption in his business dealings led to his resignation at the end of the year and later convictions of fraud and corruption, which were eventually overturned. Berlusconi went on to serve two more terms from 2001 to 2006 and from 2008 to 2011. He often made headlines for his decadent parties, sex scandals, and his 2013 conviction for tax fraud.The pope sent a condolence telegram from the hospital to the Italian leader’s oldest daughter, Maria Elvira Berlusconi, a few hours after his death was announced by his television network. The telegram sent on the pope’s behalf by Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin said: “Pope Francis, having been informed of the death of your beloved father, Senator Silvio Berlusconi, wishes to extend you and your family his closeness, assuring heartfelt participation in the mourning for the loss of a leading figure in Italian political life, who held public responsibilities with energetic temperament.”“His Holiness invokes from the Lord eternal peace for him and consolation of heart for those who mourn his passing. I join the condolences with fervent remembrance in prayer.”

A Eucharistic procession in the Vatican Gardens on the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ on June 11, 2023. / Daniel Ibáñez/CNA Vatican City, Jun 12, 2023 / 05:00 am (CNA). On the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, a German bishop led a eucharistic procession through the Vatican Gardens. Corpus Christi, also known as the solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, is a 700-year-old feast in the Catholic Church that commemorates the real presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.A eucharistic procession in the Vatican Gardens on the solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ on June 11, 2023. Daniel Ibáñez/CNAA eucharistic procession through Vatican City on the solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ. Daniel Ibáñez/CNAPope Urban IV officially established the feast in 1264 following a eucharistic miracle in the Italian town of Bolsena. Today the feast of Corpus Christi is commonly used as an opportunity for public eucharistic processions, which serve as a sign of common faith and adoration.A eucharistic procession in the Vatican Gardens on the solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ on June 11, 2023. Daniel Ibáñez/CNAThe Vatican procession on June 11 began immediately following a Mass in the Church of Our Lady of Mercy by German Teutonic Cemetery offered by Bishop Josef Clemens. Clemens is the secretary emeritus of the Pontifical Council for the Laity and served as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s personal secretary from 1984 to 2003.German Bishop Josef Clemens presided over the Mass and eucharistic adoration on the the solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ. Daniel Ibáñez/CNAMass in the Church of Our Lady of Mercy by German Teutonic Cemetery next to Vatican City State on June 11, 2023. Daniel Ibáñez/CNAThe procession ended the Vatican’s Lourdes Grotto, a replica of the grotto in Lourdes, France, where the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to St. Bernadette Soubirous in 1854. Pope Leo XIII commissioned the replica of the Lourdes Grotto in 1902 when the pope was a prisoner of the Vatican.The eucharistic procession ended in the Vatican’s Lourdes Grotto. Daniel Ibáñez/CNAPope Francis, who in past years has led a eucharistic procession in Rome for the feast, was recovering in the hospital on Corpus Christi after a three-hour surgery for an incisional hernia on June 7.A Eucharistic procession through Vatican City on the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ. Daniel Ibáñez/CNAVatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said on June 11 that Pope Francis’ “postoperative progress is normal.” He added that the pope watched Sunday Mass on television and received the Eucharist in his hospital room before praying the Angelus in the papal medical suite chapel and eating lunch with some hospital staff.A eucharistic procession through Vatican City on the solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ. Daniel Ibáñez/CNAThe 86-year-old pope is expected to remain recovering in Rome’s Gemelli Hospital for the next week. The Vatican has canceled all of the pope’s audiences, including

Young people from around the world held hands in St. Peter's Square during the #NotAlone human fraternity event June 10, 2023. / Vatican Media Rome Newsroom, Jun 10, 2023 / 11:43 am (CNA). Pope Francis said in a message Saturday that others should be treated with dignity and respect, not as objects to exploit or throw away.The pope’s speech was read aloud at a live-streamed event on human fraternity, sponsored by the Fratelli Tutti Foundation, held in St. Peter’s Square June 10. Pope Francis was scheduled to attend before being hospitalized on Wednesday for an abdominal surgery.“Even though I am unable to greet you in person, I would like to welcome and thank you wholeheartedly for coming,” Francis said in the message, read by Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, archpriest of St. Peter’s Basilica and president of the Fratelli Tutti Foundation.“In the encyclical Fratelli tutti,” the pope said, “I wrote: ‘Fraternity necessarily calls for something greater, which in turn enhances freedom and equality,’ since the one who sees the other as a brother or sister sees in him or her a face, not a number.”“The other is always ‘someone’ who has dignity and merits respect, and not ‘something’ to be used, exploited or thrown away,” he added.The June 10 event, called “#Not Alone,” was centered on the signing of a declaration on human fraternity drafted by a dozen Nobel Peace Prize winners together with representatives of former Nobel Prize-winning organizations.“United with Pope Francis, we want to reaffirm that ‘authentic reconciliation does not flee from conflict, but is achieved in conflict, resolving it through dialogue and open, honest and patient negotiation’ (Fratelli Tutti, n. 244). All this within the context of the human rights framework,” the declaration says.Cardinal Pietro Parolin, secretary of state, signed the document in Pope Francis’ place June 10.After the signing of the document, young people representing different countries formed “a symbolic embrace” by joining hands in a ring around St. Peter’s Square.Cardinal Pietro Parolin signs a declaration on human fraternity on behalf of Pope Francis while Muhammad Yunus, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006, and other Nobel laureates, look on, during the #NotAlone human fraternity event in St. Peter's Square June 10, 2023. Vatican Media.The six-hour event included speeches, testimonies, performances by Italian music artists — including Grammy-winner Andrea Bocelli — and circus performers.Nobel laureates in attendance included Iraqi human rights advocate Nadia Murad, Congolese gynecologist Denis Mukwege, and Yemeni Arab Spring leader Tawakkol Karman.The former presidents of Colombia, Costa Rica, Poland, and Democratic Republic of East Timor — all peace prize winners — also participated, as well as representatives of several U.N. organizations that have been past recipients.“In our world torn apart by violence and war, tweaks and adjustments are not enough,” Pope Francis said in his message. “Only a great spiritual and social covenant born from the heart and centered on fraternity can restore the sacredness and inviolability of human dignity as the core of relationships.”“This does not require theories on fraternity but concrete gestures

null / Vatican Media. Vatican City, Jun 10, 2023 / 05:05 am (CNA). At the recommendation of his doctors, Pope Francis will not pray the Sunday Angelus in public, the Vatican said Saturday.Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said at a press conference June 10 the pope would pray the Angelus in private at noon from within his hospital room.Dr. Sergio Alfieri, the pope’s surgeon, said he and the other medical professionals, for “prudence,” had advised the pope against giving a public Angelus address from the window of his hospital room, as he has done in the past, to avoid unnecessary strain to his abdominal muscles. In July 2021, Pope Francis prayed the Angelus from a balcony of Gemelli Hospital one week after intestinal surgery, while June 11 he will only be four days’ postoperative, the surgeon said.Bruni added that Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, archpriest of St. Peter’s Basilica, may read an Angelus message from the pope on Sunday.The surgeon Alfieri said Pope Francis “is well” and his recovery is proceeding normally. He recalled that since the day prior, the pope is no longer connected to IVs, and from Saturday, he had moved from an all-liquid to a semi-liquid diet.Post-operative blood tests and X-ray of the abdomen were “absolutely normal,” he added, noting that they would encourage Francis to remain in the hospital through next week.Dr. Sergio Alfieri, the lead surgeon for Pope Francis' abdominal surgery, speaks at a press conference at Gemelli Hospital on June 7, 2023. Andreas Thonhauser/EWTNAlfieri also clarified, in response to questions from journalists, that Pope Francis does not currently have, nor has ever had, cardiac problems.Cardinal Pietro Parolin, secretary of state, told journalists on the morning of June 10 that Pope Francis was already expressing a desire to get back to work “and this is a good sign.”Francis underwent a three-hour surgery for an incisional hernia on June 7. A team of surgeons removed scar tissue and operated on a hernia in the pope’s abdominal wall at the site of a previous surgical incision.The Vatican said June 9 the pope was “steadily improving” two days after the surgery.“The medical team reports that the clinical picture is steadily improving and the postoperative progress is normal,” Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said in a brief statement.In another June 9 update on the pope, the Vatican said “Pope Francis is touched by the many messages he continues to receive in these hours; in particular, he intends to address his thoughts and thanks to the children currently hospitalized, for the affection and love received through their drawings and messages. To them, as well as to the medical staff, nurses, social-health workers, and spiritual assistants who daily touch pain with their hands, relieving its burden, he expresses his gratitude for their closeness and prayer.“Alfieri, the pope’s main surgeon, said at a press conference shortly after the operation that Francis had been experiencing increasing pain for several months due to the hernia and decided on June 6 to undergo the surgery to correct it.It was