Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Parish

From the popemobile, Pope Leo XIV greets thousands of people lined up along Via della Conciliazione on the morning of his inaugural Mass, Sunday, May 18, 2025. / Credit: Vatican Media

Vatican City, May 22, 2025 / 14:18 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV has appointed Sister Tiziana Merletti as secretary of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.

According to the Vatican Press Office, the 66-year-old consecrated religious previously served as superior general of the Franciscan Sisters of the Poor for nine years.

She will report directly to another nun, Sister Simona Brambilla, whom Pope Francis appointed in January as prefect of the Vatican department, responsible for all matters concerning the government, discipline, studies, assets, rights, and privileges of institutes of consecrated life.

Under the late Argentine pontiff, women’s leadership increased significantly. According to data maintained by the Vatican on its website, the female presence increased from almost 19.2% to 23.4% during Francis’ pontificate. With the 2022 apostolic constitution Praedicate Evangelium, Francis decreed that laypeople, in addition to women, could lead a dicastery and become prefects, a position previously reserved for cardinals and archbishops.

Doctorate in canon law, experience in Church government

Born Sept. 30, 1959, in Pineto in the Teramo province of Italy, Merletti made her first religious profession in 1986 at the Institute of the Franciscan Sisters of the Poor. She holds a degree in civil law from the then-Libera Università Abruzzese degli Studi “Gabriele d’Annunzio” in Teramo (1984) and obtained her doctorate in canon law in 1992 from the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome.

From 2004 to 2013, she served as superior general of her congregation. Currently, Merletti is a professor in the canon law department of the Pontifical Antonianum University in Rome and collaborates as a canon lawyer with the International Union of Superiors General, the organization representing women religious of apostolic life worldwide.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

Speaker of the House Rep. Mike Johnson speaks as (left to right) House Republican Conference Chair Rep. Lisa McClain, Rep. Jason Smith, Rep. Jim Jordan, Rep. Mark Green, House Majority Leader Rep. Steve Scalise, and House Majority Whip Rep. Tom Emmer listen during a news briefing after a House Republican Conference meeting with President Donald Trump at the U.S. Capitol on May 20, 2025, in Washington, D.C. / Credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images

CNA Staff, May 22, 2025 / 13:48 pm (CNA).

Catholic leaders and pro-life advocates on Thursday praised the passage of the House of Representatives’ major budget bill, hailing the reconciliation package’s defunding of abortion providers including Planned Parenthood. 

The massive spending and tax cut bill, called the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” includes a provision that forbids Medicaid dollars from flowing to abortion providers. The ban will last for 10 years, according to the text of the bill.

Federal funding will still be permitted for clinics that assist pregnant women in medical emergencies or if the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest. 

‘The intrinsic dignity of the human person’

The abortion defunding measures have received strong support from Catholic advocates around the U.S. 

Ahead of the vote this week, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USSCB) praised the proposed measure in a letter to U.S. representatives and senators.

Stressing “the sacredness of every human life and the intrinsic dignity of the human person, created male and female, and made in the image and likeness of God,” the bishops said they “strongly support[ed]” the ending of taxpayer funding for abortion providers as well as a ban on funding for “gender transition for minors.”

Following the bill’s early passage on Thursday, Catholic Association Senior Fellow Ashley McGuire said in a statement that the organization “applaud[ed] the House’s efforts to protect women and children from exploitation at these dangerous clinics.” 

“American taxpayers overwhelmingly oppose funding abortions and harmful hormones for children,” McGuire said. “Planned Parenthood is a corporate abortion chain that is a leading provider of both, without basic and commonsense health and safety guardrails.”

“America’s women and children deserve better and American taxpayers should have no role in funding these atrocities,” she said. 

Students for Life Action President Kristan Hawkins, meanwhile, said in a statement that abortion providers were “cut out” of the bill and “told to go fund themselves.” 

The pro-life group “will now turn our attention to the U.S. Senate” in order to help secure the bill’s passage there, she said.

The advocacy group CatholicVote on Thursday said Catholics should be “ecstatic” at the House passage of the bill.

“We’re closer to defunding Planned Parenthood, ending federal funding of gender transition surgeries for minors, [and] expanding the Child Tax Credit,” the organization said in a post on X, urging Catholics to “pray the Senate passes this bill.”

SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser said Congress “took a big step toward stopping forced taxpayer funding of the Big Abortion industry.”

The passage of the bill was “a crucial win in the fight against America’s No. 1 cause of death — abortion,” Dannenfelser wrote. 

“There is no excuse for forcing taxpayers to prop up a scandal-ridden industry that prioritizes abortions, gender transitions, and partisan political activism instead of prenatal care, cancer screening, and other legitimate health services that are in continual decline,” she said. 

Dannenfelser urged the Senate to “do its part” and pass the bill. 

“More than 400,000 babies a year, their mothers, and countless American taxpayers are depending on you,” she said. 

Not all reaction from pro-life groups was positive, however. Katie Brown Xavios, the national director of the American Life League, said in a statement that the bill’s allowance for abortions to be performed in some limited circumstances “will still allow for the murder of millions.” 

“Give Planned Parenthood an inch, and it will take a mile,” she said. “If the exceptions are the only way Planned Parenthood will get paid, you better believe that every abortion will now become a life-or-death situation so that Planned Parenthood ensures that it will get its money.”

Pope Leo XIV prays in front of the famous icon at the Shrine of the Mother of Good Counsel in Genazzano, Italy, on Saturday, May 10, 2025. / Credit: Vatican Media

CNA Staff, May 22, 2025 / 13:12 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV, the first pope to come from the Order of St. Augustine (OSA), made a visit very early in his pontificate to the Shrine of the Mother of Good Counsel in Genazzano, Italy, near Rome. It houses a famous image of the Virgin Mary that according to tradition appeared there under miraculous circumstances.

Known by the title “Our Lady of Good Counsel” or “Mother of Good Counsel,” the small image of the Virgin Mary housed in the church at Genazzano has been held dear by the Augustinians for centuries. The Midwest Augustinians, which Pope Leo led as prior provincial before his election, oversee the Province of Our Mother of Good Counsel.

During his May 10 visit to the church, Leo spoke of the Virgin Mary’s protection and the importance of devotion to her. He prayed at the altar and before the Marian image there, and also prayed a prayer to the Mother of Good Counsel with the assembly.

“As the mother never abandons her children, you must also be faithful to the Mother,” Pope Leo said.

Who is Our Lady of Good Counsel?

The title of “Good Counsel” given to Mary is a recognition of Christ’s mother as a source of heavenly wisdom and guidance.

​​According to tradition, on April 25, 1467, the feast of St. Mark, a mysterious cloud descended on an ancient fifth-century deteriorated church in Genazzano, which had previously been dedicated to Our Lady of Good Counsel and was being renovated by the Augustinians, having been entrusted to that order in 1356.

When the cloud disappeared, a fragile image of the Blessed Virgin and Child was found on a thin sheet of plaster. The painting, about 18 inches square, is said to have hung in midair, suspended without support.

It was widely believed that the image — said to date to the time of the apostles — had been miraculously transported to Italy from a church in Albania’s capital city, Scutari, just before its invasion by the Ottomans that same year. As the Midwest Augustinians tell it, however, scientific tests done in the 1950s gave evidence that the small image was probably painted sometime between 1417 and 1431 for the church and was painted over before later being uncovered when a poor widow gave all she had to fund the renovation of the church. 

Regardless of how it arrived, in the months following the appearance of the image, a local priest acting as a notary recorded over 160 miracles, including physical healings, answered prayers, and dramatic conversions.

Much of the church of Our Lady of Good Counsel was destroyed during World War II, but the image remained intact and in place. Today it is housed in a small chapel that forms the heart of the church. 

As described by EWTN Vatican, the Virgin Mary is depicted wearing a blue mantle — symbolizing humanity — while the child Jesus wears a red robe, signifying his divinity. Mary’s face reflects the classical artistic tradition, while the child displays features of the Byzantine style, symbolizing a union between East and West. Above them arches a rainbow, the biblical sign of peace.

Over the years, a large number of popes — including saintly popes — have visited the church in Genazzano seeking Mary’s guidance and wisdom, and have promoted devotion to Our Lady under this title. 

Pope Urban VII (1521–1590) prayed for the end of a plague in Rome; Pope Pius IX sought the Virgin’s intercession before the First Vatican Council, which began in 1869.  

Leo XIII, Leo XIV’s spiritual predecessor and a devotee to Our Lady of Good Counsel, added the invocation “Mater boni concili, ora pronobis” (“Mother of Good Counsel, pray for us”) to the Litany of Loreto in 1903. Leo XIII also approved the white scapular of Our Lady of Good Counsel and entrusted it to the Augustinians.

In more recent times, St. John XXIII came to the shrine to, in similar fashion to Pius IX, seek guidance for the Second Vatican Council. St. John Paul II endorsed the devotion during an April 22, 1993, visit to the church, and soon afterward consecrated Albania to Our Lady of Good Counsel. Pope Benedict XVI had an image of the icon placed in the Vatican Gardens in 2009. 

Many pilgrims visit the church in Genazzano and take part in the annual spring celebration, observed on April 25. Elsewhere in the world, the feast of Our Lady of Good Counsel is celebrated on April 26.

How can you increase your devotion to Our Lady of Good Counsel?

— Prayer to Mary, our Lady of Good Counsel on CNA’s website

— Litany to Our Lady of Good Counsel on EWTN’s website

— Icon available at EWTN Religious Catalogue

The U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C. / Credit: Wolfgang Schaller|Shutterstock

CNA Staff, May 22, 2025 / 12:12 pm (CNA).

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday declined to issue a ruling in a contentious case involving what was proposed to be the nation’s first religious charter school, leaving untouched a lower court ruling that forbids the Catholic institution from accessing state funds.

In its Thursday ruling, the high court said its judges had split evenly on whether or not to allow St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School to launch in the state of Oklahoma. The ruling leaves in place an Oklahoma Supreme Court order that said the school’s use of public money would violate state and federal law.

“The judgment is affirmed by an equally divided court,” the unsigned order said. 

The per curiam decision noted that Justice Amy Coney Barrett “took no part in the consideration or decision” of the case. Barrett had recused herself from the case for unknown reasons, though it was likely due to her ties to the University of Notre Dame. The school’s religious liberty clinic helped the Catholic charter school in its bid before the Supreme Court.

Conservative-leaning justices at the high court had last month seemed sympathetic to the establishment of the school, while the court’s liberal justices were more skeptical of the proposal. 

At issue was whether the Catholic charter school would violate laws regarding the separation of church and state and the establishment of state-supported religion. Charter schools are privately-run institutions that are funded by the government similar to public schools.

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond had argued against the incorporation of the school, claiming it violated Oklahoma and federal laws. The prosecutor referred to the institution as a “state-established religious school” and described it as “repugnant to Oklahoma and federal law.” He alleged that Oklahoma might be forced to subsidize “radical Islamic” schools if it allowed the Catholic institution access to public money.

The school was backed by religious liberty advocates, meanwhile, as well as the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa, both of which were involved with the school’s creation. 

Archbishop Paul Coakley and Bishop David Konderla last month said they “pray[ed] and hope[d] for a decision that stands with religious liberty and the rights of Oklahoma families to make their own decisions in selecting the best educational options for their children.” 

On Thursday the prelates said in a statement that they were “disappointed that the Oklahoma state Supreme Court’s decision was upheld in a 4-4 decision without explanation.”

“We remain firm in our commitment to offering an outstanding education to families and students across the state of Oklahoma,” they said. “And we stand committed to parental choice in education, providing equal opportunity to all who seek options when deciding what is best for their children.”

Meanwhile, Drummond’s office told CNA on Thursday said the ruling “represents a resounding victory for religious liberty and for the foundational principles that have guided our nation since its founding.” 

“This ruling ensures that Oklahoma taxpayers will not be forced to fund radical Islamic schools while protecting the religious rights of families to choose any school they wish for their children,” he said. 

The charter school had received the backing of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which told the Supreme Court last month that charter schools “have long performed the function of educating students” in the United States and that St. Isidore’s participation in the state charter program would “not make it a state actor.”

Two dozen amicus briefs were filed at the Supreme Court in support of the Catholic charter school, including from the U.S. Solicitor General’s Office and the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America.

Also backing the school were a dozen states including Ohio, Texas, South Carolina, and Kansas, who argued in a brief that they had “a compelling interest in expanding educational opportunities for their citizens.”

This story was updated Thursday, May 22, 2025, at 1:20 p.m. ET with the statement from Archbishop Paul Coakley and Bishop David Konderla.

St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans. / Credit: travelview/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, May 22, 2025 / 11:52 am (CNA).

The Archdiocese of New Orleans this week agreed to pay a massive $180 million to victims of clergy abuse there, bringing an end to years of bankruptcy proceedings in federal court and pointing to what Archbishop Gregory Aymond called “a path to healing for survivors and for our local Church.”

The law firm Pachulski Stang Ziehl & Jones LLP, which represented abuse victims in the proceedings, said in a press release that the sum represented “more than 20 times the archdiocese’s initial settlement estimate” when the archdiocese first filed for bankruptcy in 2020.

The settlement, if it is accepted by the abuse survivors, brings an end to almost exactly five years of bitter disputes over how the archdiocese handled sex abuse cases in the past and how it planned to compensate victims of clergy abuse now. 

The process was protracted enough that U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Meredith Grabill made the unusual move last month to order the archdiocese to defend the ongoing proceedings, demanding that Church officials explain why the bankruptcy case should not be dismissed by the court. 

The law firm representing the victims said this week that in addition to the multimillion-dollar settlement amount, the archdiocese will also be required to publish “perpetrator files and other abuse-related documents.” 

As well, the settlement will establish “a public archive that will serve as a repository of the history of abuse” within the archdiocese. That archive will be administered by a secular college or university. 

As well, the former Hope Haven orphanage just outside of New Orleans will receive a memorial to those who suffered sex abuse there. Multiple priests on the archdiocese’s list of credibly accused clergy allegedly committed abuse at that facility in the 1950s and 1960s. 

In a statement on Thursday, Aymond said the settlement gave him “great hope.”

The agreement “protects our parishes and begins to bring the proceedings to a close,” the prelate said, adding: “I am grateful to God for all who have worked to reach this agreement and that we may look to the future towards a path to healing for survivors and for our local Church.”

The archbishop in the statement praised abuse victims for speaking out about what they endured. 

“Please know that because of your courage in coming forward and your steadfast commitment to preventing the horrors of child sexual abuse, we are a better and stronger Church,” he said. 

The settlement represents one of the larger sums in the U.S. paid out to victims of clergy sexual abuse. 

The Diocese of Buffalo, New York, last month said it will pay out $150 million as part of a settlement with victims of clergy sexual abuse there. 

The Diocese of Rockville Centre, New York, meanwhile, in December 2024 said a court agreed to its record abuse settlement proposal of $323 million.

The Rockville Centre sum represents the highest abuse settlement paid out by a single U.S. diocese, though the Archdiocese of Los Angeles last year said it would pay out nearly $900 million in abuse settlements, which remains the most that any part of the U.S. Church has paid in such proceedings.

San Diego Bishop-elect Michael Pham. / Credit: Father Michael Pham

Vatican City, May 22, 2025 / 11:22 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV on Thursday appointed Bishop Michael Pham as bishop of the Diocese of San Diego. He will rise from the position of auxiliary bishop there and succeed Cardinal Robert McElroy as head of the diocese.

Having received his episcopal consecration in September 2023, the 58-year-old Vietnam-born bishop has also served as titular bishop of Cercina. He was appointed the San Diego Diocese’s temporary administrator after McElroy was installed as bishop of Washington in March.

Since his ordination to the priesthood in 1999, Pham has ministered to Catholic faithful in parishes throughout the San Diego Diocese.

From 1991 to 2001, he served as assistant priest for St. Mary, Star of the Sea, in Oceanside. Between 2004 and 2023 he was appointed parish priest for the San Diego parishes of Holy Family and St. Therese. 

Other offices the new bishop-elect has held in the San Diego Diocese include vocations director from 2001 to 2004, vicar for ethnic and intercultural communities since 2017, and vicar general of San Diego. 

He has also been a member of the diocese’s executive board, presbyteral council, finance council, college of consultors, and boards for priests and seminarians. 

Pham began his seminary studies in the 1990s at St. Francis Seminary at the University of San Diego and completed his training at St. Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park, where he was awarded a bachelor’s degree in systematic theology and a master’s degree in divinity.

In 2020, he completed a licentiate degree in sacred theology at the University of St. Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum) in Rome.

The bishop-elect also obtained a bachelor’s degree in aeronautical engineering from San Diego State University and completed a master’s degree in psychology at the University of Phoenix in 2009.

Photograph of Pope Leo XIV released by the Vatican. / Credit: Vatican Media

CNA Newsroom, May 22, 2025 / 10:33 am (CNA).

Follow our live coverage as Pope Leo XIV, first U.S.-born pope in history, begins his pontificate: Experience history in the making with former Cardinal Robert Prevost.

The childhood home of Robert Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV, in Dolton, Illinois. / Credit: Michael Howie, Attribution, via Wikimedia Commons

CNA Staff, May 22, 2025 / 09:21 am (CNA).

The village of Dolton, a suburb just south of Chicago and the hometown of Pope Leo XIV, is seeking to acquire his childhood home for use as a historical site.

Steve Budzik, the home’s listing broker, told CNA he and the home’s current owner, Pawel Radzik, are eager to work with the village and come to an agreement. 

“The seller wants to sell and the village wants to buy,” Budzik told CNA. “The question is: How do we determine what is fair market value for something so unique, so rare? There are no comps, there is nothing else like this.”

According to Budzik, they received a letter from the village last week indicating its interest in purchasing the home. The letter said the Archdiocese of Chicago is also working with the city to acquire the home. The archdiocese did not respond to a request for comment. 

According to village attorney Burt Odelson, Dolton would like to purchase the home, which was listed for sale in January, in order to turn it into a publicly accessible historic site. If an agreement on price cannot be reached, however, Odelson told Fox2Now the village will attempt to acquire the home by eminent domain. 

“We have a legal right to take the property for public use. That’s the key word — public use. A historic site is public use,” he said.

Recently-elected Dolton Mayor Jason House told ABC7 Chicago that the village will only use that option if current negotiations fail. 

Last year, Radzik paid $66,000 for the three-bedroom, three-bathroom, 1,050-square-foot home at 212 E. 141st Place. After extensive remodels, it was listed for sale for $219,000 in January. The price dropped to $199,900 in April.

Upon learning on May 8 that the home had belonged to the newly elected pope’s parents, who bought the house from the builder in 1949 and lived in it for decades, the owner removed it from the market “to regroup” and reassess the situation, according to Budzik.  

About a week later, after enlisting the help of Paramount Realty USA in order to sell the house at a closed bid auction, Radzik put the house back on the market. Bids are currently active and are open until June 18.

However, House told ABC7 Chicago that if anyone else purchases the house through the auction, they should know that their purchase would only be “temporary” because the city will still attempt to acquire it through eminent domain. 

The listing states the home is “a piece of papal history,” calling it “a one-of-a-kind opportunity” with “a story of transformation, legacy, and limitless potential,” and where a buyer can “own a place where history was made.”

“Born Robert Francis Prevost in Chicago and raised right here in Dolton, Pope Leo XIV’s journey from this humble neighborhood to the Vatican is a testament to faith, perseverance, and purpose. Now, you have the rare chance to own a tangible piece of his inspiring legacy,” the listing says. 

This past Monday, Dolton officials moved to rename a portion of 141st Place after the first U.S.-born pope, Budzik told CNA.

Ward Miller of the group Preservation Chicago, a nonprofit advocacy organization dedicated to preserving historic sites of Chicago and encouraging landmark designations in the city, told CNA that while the home will not be a candidate for historic landmark designation through the city of Chicago because it falls outside its service area, he hopes it will receive a local Dolton landmark designation at the very least.

He said that “would not stop the house from eventually being” listed as a National Register of Historic places site “or even a National Historic Landmark.”  

Miller is advocating for Pope Leo’s childhood parish, St. Mary of the Assumption, which is within the city’s jurisdiction, to receive a Chicago landmark designation. A petition has been set up for the purpose. 

The parish has been vacant since 2011. “A Chicago landmark designation is the only thing that will keep the building from being demolished,” Miller told CNA. It was purchased recently by Joel Hall, who told ABC7 Chicago he is open to pursuing the Chicago landmark designation. 

Miller told CNA that Preservation Chicago went before a committee of the Commission on Chicago Landmarks last Friday recommending the creation of a landmark district that would include many of the sites — including St. Mary of the Assumption — associated with Pope Leo XIV. 

He said he hopes the decision to create the landmark district will be expedited considering the “phenomenal, remarkable thing that happened” with Prevost’s election to the papacy.

This is “a chance for Chicago to rise to the top,” Miller, a Catholic, told CNA. “It’s amazing, the first American pope, and he’s from Chicago!”

Those who want to participate can visit the eCatholic website to “take a moment to offer a message of prayer, encouragement, or support” and submit a video. / Credit: "EWTN News Nightly"/Screenshot

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, May 22, 2025 / 08:00 am (CNA).

Tech company eCatholic is collecting video messages of prayer, encouragement, and support from Catholics across the globe this month to create a montage of “blessings” for Pope Leo XIV.

Jason Jaynes, CEO of eCatholic, said the initiative was born during a meeting earlier this month when a team member asked: “Wouldn’t it be a really great and cool initiative [if] we could let Catholics all over the world share their blessings with the new pope?”

The effort, launched shortly after Pope Leo XIV’s election, has already received submissions from “every continent across the globe,” Jaynes told “EWTN News Nightly” anchor Catherine Hadro.

Planning for the initiative started during the first day of the conclave, when eCatholic employees “had no idea that just 24 hours later, there’d be white smoke and we’d already have a new pope,” Jaynes said. 

“We wanted to do something meaningful — and a little creative — to mark the moment and celebrate with the universal Church,” eCatholic marketing director Michael Josephs told EWTN’s ChurchPop.

Some of the submissions eCatholic has received so far feature children singing in Latin, people offering prayers to the first U.S.-born pope, and group messages from parishes congratulating Pope Leo XIV on his election. 

The videos have come from people around the world speaking multiple languages, which Jaynes said “reinforces the universal nature of our Church.”

Those who want to participate can visit the eCatholic website to “take a moment to offer a message of prayer, encouragement, or support” and submit a video. 

“We’re going to keep the submissions open through the end of this month,” Jaynes said. “Then we’ll be reaching out with the montage, probably first over social media since Pope Leo has a presence there, and also trying to reach out to work with the Vatican media and others to get these messages in front of him.”

Spanish Augustinian Bishop Luis Marín de San Martín and Cardinal Robert Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV. / Credit: Courtesy of Bishop Luis Marín

Vatican City, May 22, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).

The undersecretary of the general secretariat of the Synod of Bishops, the Spanish Augustinian Bishop Luis Marín de San Martín, is among those who have collaborated most closely with Pope Leo XIV.

In 2008, Marín moved to Rome because the then-prior general of the Augustinians asked him to take charge of the order’s archives. The past 17 years of association equips him to make a clear prognosis of what Pope Leo’s pontificate will be like.

“He’s not a person who governs from his office; he goes out to meet people,” the bishop told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. He also noted that Pope Leo XIV is a son of the Second Vatican Council: “He embraces its theological development, above all, the ecclesiology of the constitution Lumen Gentium, which is a point of reference for synodality, although the term does not appear in it.”

The then-Cardinal Robert Prevost — now Pope Leo XIV — actively participated in all phases of the Synod on Synodality, a signature project of Pope Francis launched three years ago that aimed to make the Church more coherent and participatory, and less clerical. This is an approach that the pope “holds very dear,” since “Augustinian spirituality is very synodal,” as are “our style and structures,” Marín emphasized.

“The Augustinian charism very much fosters communion, fraternal life. It’s our most distinctive feature. We Augustinians are also a mendicant order that doesn’t have a pyramidal structure like the monastic structures do, but rather a much more horizontal one. We are governed by the prior, a ‘primus inter pares’ [first among equals]. And our chapter is very participatory: Decisions are made among all the friars,” he explained.

The key to synodality, Marín emphasized, is not ideological or political but theological and ecclesial: “Pope Leo XIV is synodal because the Church is synodal. To realize this, it’s enough to know sacred Scripture, patristics, Church history, canon law … It’s the life of the Church, which becomes experience and witness.”

In 1985, Prevost, then a priest, was sent to Peru to work in the Chulucanas mission. After a brief return to Chicago in 1987, he returned to Peru in 1988, specifically to Trujillo, where he served as a teacher and formator. While there, he was elected prior provincial of the Augustinian Province of Chicago in 1998 and, in 2001, prior general of the Augustinian order, a position he held until 2013.

“The Church has required him to make big changes in his life, but he has always trusted in what God asked of him at each moment, with total availability to the Lord and great love for the Church,” Marín commented.

In October 2013, Prevost returned to Chicago to serve again as master of the professed and vicar provincial, a role he held until Nov. 3, 2014, when Pope Francis appointed him apostolic administrator of the Peruvian Diocese of Chiclayo, making him a bishop and assigning him the titular diocese of Sufar, until he was appointed bishop of Chiclayo the following year.

Pope Leo XIV loves to drive

Marín visited him in Chiclayo, and together they toured the coastal city by car: “Prevost loves to drive, and I was able to see the affection the people had for Padre Roberto, my bishop, as they called him.”

The prelate described him above all as “a simple, genuine, authentic person, somewhat reserved, but one who greatly values ​​fraternity” and highlighted his great “sensitivity to social justice, to the poorest, the most needy, and the oppressed.”

“He has great inner balance. He is a profound, serene, precise, thoughtful, and prayerful man. He’s not given to improvisation,” the undersecretary summarized, also highlighting his ability to work as part of a team.

“He will exercise global leadership, and his voice will be greatly taken into account,” he added. 

The 12 years he served as prior general of the Augustinians, from 2001 to 2013 — the order is present in 47 countries — gave him a vision of the universal Church that also demonstrated his abilities.

“During those years, he visited all the communities in the order, some several times, and embraced cultural diversity. He has a panoramic view of the universal Church; he knows it well,” the prelate explained.

Continuity with Francis

In January 2023, Pope Francis appointed him to head the Dicastery for Bishops, one of the most important departments of the Roman Curia, from which the future leadership of the Church is drawn.

“He had his full confidence. They had known each other since Prevost was prior general and [then-Jorge] Bergoglio was archbishop of Buenos Aires,” he recounted, recalling a pivotal episode in their relationship.

“Pope Francis had just been elected, and Prevost, who was ending his term as prior general, asked him, without much hope, to preside over the opening Mass of the general chapter of the Augustinians in St. Augustine Basilica in Rome. And he accepted. It was historic. Never before had a pope presided over the opening Eucharist of the general chapter of the Order of St. Augustine,” he noted.

In any case, Marín made it clear that Pope Leo XIV will not be a “Francis clone,” although “there will be continuity in many aspects.” 

The new pope is, above all, a man of profound interior life. He possesses a solid spirituality, forged through prayer, which is also reflected in his apostolate and his understanding of ecclesial leadership.

“Communion with Christ,” the prelate said, “leads us not only as priests but also all Christians to feel responsible for the Church. Each with a different vocation, but all co-responsible and interconnected to proclaim the risen Christ and bear witness to him in today’s world.”

For Marín, the election of this Augustinian as the successor of Peter has immense value: “It’s a blessing from God. An extraordinary gift not only for the order but for the universal Church. As you get to know Pope Leo XIV, you will see what a gift the Lord has given us, you will get to know his qualities. He is the right person for the right time.”

According to the undersecretary, the spirituality of the order to which the man who now sits on the chair of Peter belongs is based on four pillars: community life, interior life, integration into the world, and availability to the needs of the Church.

“The Church is like a family, the family of God, which, in love, integrates unity and diversity. I believe it is crucial to strengthen communion,” he emphasized after warning against empty activism.

“Furthermore, if we don’t cultivate the interior life, we’re not offering anything. We have to bear witness to Christ, to communicate him to the world. And we can only bear witness to Christ if we know him from experience. Because the risen Christ is a living person.” 

Marín concluded by recalling that Pope Leo XIV’s first words in his greeting to the people of God were those of the risen Christ: “Peace be with you all.”

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.