WASHINGTON (OSV News) – Pope Francis has created the ecclesiastical province of Las Vegas, comprised of the Archdiocese of Las Vegas and the suffragan dioceses of Reno, Nevada, and Salt Lake City.

He also named Las Vegas Bishop George Leo Thomas to be the first metropolitan archbishop of Las Vegas. Archbishop Thomas, who turned 73 May 19, was appointed the third bishop of Las Vegas Feb. 28, 2018.

The establishment of the new province and the appointment of the metropolitan archbishop was publicized in Washington May 30 by Archbishop Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the United States.

Then-Bishop George Leo Thomas of Las Vegas returns to his seat after receiving Communion at the Basilica of St. Mary Major during his “ad limina” visit in Rome Jan. 30, 2020. Pope Francis created the ecclesiastical province of Las Vegas May 30, 2023, which is comprised of the Archdiocese of Las Vegas and the suffragan dioceses of Reno, Nevada, and Salt Lake City. The same day he named Bishop Thomas the first metropolitan archbishop of Las Vegas. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

A metropolitan archbishop is the head of his archdiocese, and while he has no direct power of governance over the suffragan dioceses in his province, “through canon law, he supports them in matters of faith and discipline and provides fraternal pastoral care to his brother bishops,” said a news release from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

“Las Vegas has been for me one of the most beautiful encounters, beautiful treasures I could have ever experienced,” Archbishop Thomas told reporters at a news briefing in Las Vegas about the creation of the ecclesiastical province, the elevation of the five-county diocese in southern Nevada to an archdiocese and his being named an archbishop.

He was joined at the briefing by Auxiliary Bishop Gregory W. Gordon of Las Vegas; Bishop Daniel H. Mueggenborg of Reno, Nevada; Bishop Oscar A. Solis of Salt Lake City; and retired Auxiliary Bishop Richard B. Higgins of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services.

When Archbishop Thomas was named the third bishop of Las Vegas by Pope Francis in 2018, he had been the bishop of Helena, Montana, for 14 years. Before that, the Montana native was an auxiliary bishop of Seattle for four years.

He said that when he was named to Las Vegas, Archbishop Christophe Pierre, papal nuncio to the U.S., informed him of the appointment and also told him the Las Vegas Diocese had “grown too complex” to send a new bishop to be its shepherd.

By “complex,” he meant it had “a pronounced shortage of priests and seminarians, exponential growth of laity, and needed to build new parishes and establish new schools,” Archbishop Thomas recalled, adding that he told the nuncio: “The one thing I can do is bring wise and gifted people around a common table and we can solve anything.”

The creation of the ecclesiastical province of Las Vegas and elevation of the diocese to an archdiocese illustrate that “the dynamism of this local church, the vitality of the parishes and communities” has come “to the attention of the Holy See,” Archbishop Thomas said.

“I feel very grateful to the Holy See and certainly to Pope Francis, whom I love very deeply, but the honor and the glory belongs to the priests and to the lay faithful,” the archbishop said. “It is the people laboring out in the fields and in the communities who are really responsible for the dynamism of this archdiocese.”

“We are having exponential growth to be sure, and people receiving excellent pastoral care,” he said. “The fact we have now become an archdiocese is certainly a mark of approbation and approval of the Holy Father” and “most especially is a credit” to the laity, priests and religious.

Archbishop Thomas said he planned to go to Rome June 28 with pilgrims from the archdiocese and fellow clergy and that on June 29 he will receive the pallium from the pope.

The pallium is the woolen band that the heads of archdioceses wear around their shoulders over their Mass vestments. It symbolizes an archbishop’s unity with the pope and his authority and responsibility to care for the flock the pope entrusted to him.

“I’m told I’m the only American receiving it this year,” Archbishop Thompson said, adding that Archbishop Pierre will place it over his shoulders in Las Vegas Oct. 2, the feast of the Guardian Angela, during a major celebration at the Shrine of the Most Holy Redeemer that will formally establish Las Vegas as an archdiocese.

In his remarks at the briefing, Bishop Gordon said that the pope’s creation of the new province and elevation of the diocese to archdiocese is “a reflection at this moment of the tremendous growth” of the church and Nevada itself in terms of population, hotels and sports arenas but also in terms “of the spiritual, as evidenced by the increase in the number of baptisms, parishes, schools and other apostolates.

But “this moment” also is certainly a reflection of the pope’s confidence in the spiritual leadership of Archbishop Thomas, who “is always thanking us for all the work we (do) but we know the truth, that work would not be done if it weren’t for the fact the shepherd is so active and so engaged,” Bishop Gordon said. “We thank you for all you’ve done these past five years in our new archdiocese. … We look forward to working with you in your pastoral ministry in this archdiocese for many, many years to come.”

Bishop Gordon said the first inquiries into the possibility of Las Vegas becoming an archdiocese and an ecclesiastical province being created for Nevada and Utah go back to the creation of the Las Vegas Diocese in 1995.

“(There are) decades of growth, decades of censuses showing how Nevada and Utah lead the nation as among the fastest growing states,” Bishop Gordon said, noting that Nevada’s five southern counties making up the new archdiocese alone have over 750,000 Catholics.

In 1995, St. John Paul II divided what was the Diocese of Reno-Las Vegas into the Diocese of Reno and the Diocese of Las Vegas. The Diocese of Reno was first established March 27, 1931, and then redesignated as the Diocese of Reno-Las Vegas Oct. 13, 1976.

The statewide Diocese of Salt Lake was formed in 1891 from the Vicariate of Utah and Eastern Nevada. In 1951, the Vatican renamed it the Diocese of Salt Lake City.

Before May 30, the dioceses of Reno, Las Vegas and Salt Lake City were suffragan dioceses of the metropolitan Archdiocese of San Francisco.

Bishop Mueggenborg, who has headed the Reno Diocese since 2021, said at the briefing that he met the May 30 announcement about Las Vegas “with great joy and profound gratitude.”

“I extend my heartfelt congratulations to you, Archbishop Thomas, and the archdiocese. This is a significant milestone and it marks a new chapter in the life of the church especially here in Nevada but in the entire Great Basin of the United States. It reflects not only the spiritual growth but also the dedication that has taken root here the last 28 years.”

Bishop Solis, who has been Salt Lake City’s bishop since 2017, called it “a great honor and privilege to join you in this milestone in celebration of God’s blessing to this local church here in Nevada.”

He extended his diocese’s and state’s “warmest congratulations for this wonderful moment in the history of the local church of Las Vegas.”

“Nothing happens by accident,” Bishop Solis said. “It is always the movement of the Holy Spirit that inspires priests, religious men and women, as well as the laity, to build a vibrant church in joy and gratitude.”

GOWER, Mo. (OSV News) – Thousands flocked to a rural Missouri monastery over the Memorial Day weekend to venerate the apparently incorrupt body of a Benedictine nun with visitors telling OSV News the experience has been spiritually powerful for them.

“It’s electrifying. It’s galvanizing the hearts of the faithful and the unfaithful as well,” said Luke Nold of Easton, Missouri, a volunteer helping the crowds converging at the Abbey of Our Lady of Ephesus, located outside of Gower. “I’ve talked to people who have come from as far as Colorado, as near as Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa. … northern Minnesota, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, North Carolina. And some of the stories I’m hearing are just profound. A local mortician came out just in disbelief; this doesn’t happen.”

The remarkably intact remains of Benedictine Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster of the Most Holy Rosary have been on display for several weeks at the Abbey of Our Lady of Ephesus. On April 28, the Benedictine Sisters of Mary, Queen of the Apostles had exhumed the body of their foundress to transfer it to a new shrine altar honoring St. Joseph.

Vistors stand in a long line to view the apparently incorrupt body of Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster at the Abbey of Our Lady of Ephesus in Gower, Mo., May 27, 2023. (OSV News photo/Megan Marley)

Despite a lack of embalming, an in-ground burial in a wooden coffin and water pooling in the grave, both the remains and the habit looked essentially the same as when Sister Wilhelmina died at age 95 in May 2019.

Bodily incorruptibility has long been regarded in both Catholic and Orthodox traditions as a potential — though not conclusive — divine sign affirming an individual lived a life of sanctity. The bodies of more than 100 canonized saints have been seemingly untouched by decay.

A May 22 statement from the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Missouri, said the condition of Sister Wilhelmina’s remains “has understandably generated widespread interest and raised important questions.” It added, “Bishop (James V.) Johnston is working to establish a thorough process for understanding the nature of the condition of Sister Wilhelmina’s remains.”

As word of Sister Wilhelmina’s remains spread, pilgrims from several states have steadily descended on the abbey, praying before and touching items to the body, which the sisters cleaned and protected with a coating of wax.

The visits intensified ahead of a May 29 rosary procession, after which Sister Wilhelmina’s body was encased in glass at the altar shrine. The steady stream of pilgrims — which one law enforcement official told OSV News numbered “close to 5,000” on just Friday alone of Memorial Day weekend — flowed on either side of the body. They knelt for 60-second intervals before the body, and then passed by a table to touch Sister Wilhelmina’s veil.

Many pilgrims also stopped to spend some time in Eucharistic adoration at the abbey’s church. Outside, hay bales and folding chairs formed makeshift confessionals in the nearby fields.

Volunteers from neighboring parishes — including St. Joseph in Easton and Seven Dolors in Hurlingen — and from Knights of Columbus councils across the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph were on hand to direct traffic, hand out water and food, and shuttle visitors in golf carts.

Maegan Meyers of Lincoln, Nebraska, traveled to the abbey with her family for “love of the saints and to be able to have (her) kids experience that.”

The two-hour journey to see a possible saint in the making was “such a gift,” she said.

“We were just talking about just how prevalent and how loud the culture is, and how very clear it is, the timing of this,” said Meyers. “(We have) just so much gratitude for her witness.”

For some, Sister Wilhelmina’s apparently miraculous incorruptibility was a sign of divine approval for her founding of the religious community. After 50 years as a member of the Oblate Sisters of Providence in Baltimore – a historically African American religious community whose foundress, Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange, is on the path to sainthood – Sister Wilhelmina established the Benedictine Sisters of Mary, Queen of the Apostles in 1995. The congregation uses the older forms of the Roman Rite promulgated prior to the start of the Second Vatican Council: they have Mass according to the 1962 Roman Missal and chant the psalms according to the 1962 Monastic Office. The sisters have even had commercial success with their recordings of chants, topping Billboard’s traditional classic album charts in 2013 and 2014.

Joshua Smith from Auburn, Maine, who attends Mass according to the 1962 Roman Missal, commonly called the “traditional Latin Mass,” told OSV News his two daughters are members of the congregation and he saw Sister Wilhelmina while she was still alive. Smith said he finds the nun’s apparent incorruptibility “as some confirmation that we’re on the right path. … It kind of binds us together.”

As an African American, Roberta Crawford of Kansas City, Missouri, told OSV News it was “even more awesome to know” that Sister Wilhelmina also was Black, and that “her belief was strong.”

“This is kind of a once-in-a-lifetime thing, and it was something we needed to see,” she said. “We’re not Catholic, but we have a belief that we just needed to see it, that it actually happened.”

Through experiences like this, “we still see how God is acting in our life,” said Father Sam, a priest from the Diocese of Tulsa, Oklahoma, who did not provide his last name. He told OSV News he was visiting with fellow Hispanic Catholic parishioners.

“God is using these kinds of events to be able to show his power, to help us to understand that God is alive,” the priest said, “so we may trust in him and believe in him.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Francis called on the international community to work concretely against torture and to guarantee support to victims and their families.

“Let us put a stop to this horror of torture. It is essential to put the dignity of the person above all else,” the pope said in a video message released May 30 by the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network.

The network posts a short video of the pope offering his specific prayer intention each month. For the month of June, the pope dedicated his prayer intention to the abolition of torture.

The International Day in Support of Victims of Torture is June 26 to highlight the day when the U.N. Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment came into effect in 1987. While torture is prohibited by international law and is illegal in most countries, it is still practiced worldwide.

Alice Edwards, U.N. special rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, said, “The national duty to investigate torture is alarmingly, universally, under-implemented.” Every nation has a duty to criminalize and investigate allegations of torture, prosecute or extradite suspects, and sentence offenders with penalties that reflect the gravity of the offence, she told the U.N. Human Rights Council in March 2023.

In his video message, the pope asked, “How is it possible that the human capacity for cruelty is so huge?” Torture is “not something new. Let’s think of how Jesus himself was tortured and crucified.”

While there are extremely violent forms of torture, “others are more sophisticated, such as degrading someone, dulling the senses, or mass detentions in conditions so inhumane that they take away the dignity of the person,” he said.

Victims are not seen as persons, but as “things” that “can be mistreated mercilessly, causing death or permanent psychological and physical harm lasting a lifetime,” the pope said.

“Let us pray that the international community commit itself concretely to abolish torture, guaranteeing support to victims and their families,” he added.

 

 

WORLD REFUGEE DAY TO BE CELEBRATED JUNE 24 IN SCRANTON

 

Celebrate and honor World Refugee Day! On Saturday, June 24, everyone is invited to join local Scranton refugee communities for a time of sharing, learning, fellowship and celebration that honors global refugees from 2-4 p.m.. The event, to be held at Nay Aug Park, Scranton, will include cultural songs and music, refreshments, games and activities for kids. World Refugee Day is an annual international day, designated by the United Nations, to celebrate the strength and courage of people who have been forced to flee their home countries to escape conflict or persecution.

 

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Catholics should make an “examination of conscience” about how they use social media, how they allow it to influence them and about the opportunities it provides them to share the Gospel, build community and care for others, said the Vatican Dicastery for Communication.

“Unfortunately, the tendency to get carried away in heated and sometimes disrespectful discussions is common with online exchanges,” said the dicastery’s document, “Toward Full Presence. A Pastoral Reflection on Engagement with Social Media.”

“Toward Full Presence. A Pastoral Reflection on Engagement with Social Media” is the title of a document from the Vatican Dicastery for Communication released May 29, 2023. The text calls on Catholics to make an examination of conscience about how they use social media and to educate themselves about its potential pitfalls. (CNS photo/Courtesy Dicastery for Communication)

“The problem of polemical and superficial, and thus divisive, communication is particularly worrying when it comes from church leadership: bishops, pastors and prominent lay leaders,” the document said. “These not only cause division in the community but also give permission and legitimacy for others likewise to promote similar type of communication.”

Signed by Paolo Ruffini, prefect of the dicastery, and Msgr. Lucio A. Ruiz, secretary of the office, the document was released at a news conference May 29.

When faced with erroneous or divisive content on social media, the document said, “often the best course of action is not to react, or to react with silence so as not to dignify this false dynamic.”

Asked if there was not something more active the dicastery could do, for example, with a bishop acting badly on social media, Ruffini responded that it is not the competency of his office to discipline anyone, but in general on social media it is better not to share or comment on offensive content since it only raises its profile.

Xavière Missionary Sister Nathalie Becquart, undersecretary of the Synod of Bishops, a member of the dicastery, said everyone in the church needs to be educated about social media and learn to discern “when to speak and when not to speak.”

While the document argued for the need for Catholics to sometimes take a break from social media to pray, reflect and spend time with others in person, it recognized social media as a vehicle for sharing Gospel values and as daily part of life for millions of people around the world, including many people in developing nations whose only digital access is to social media.

But it also called on Catholics to be fully informed about its pitfalls and recognize that companies claim their platforms were designed “to bring the world closer together, to give everyone the power to create and share ideas, or to give everyone a voice,” when, in fact, they are businesses that make money by using an individual’s posts to target advertising to them and by selling their profiles and data.

The document quoted an adage that says, “‘If you are not paying for it, you are the product.’ In other words, it is not free: we are paying with minutes of our attention and bytes of our data.”

People also must be aware, it said, that the history of who they follow, what they look at and what they search for feed into algorithms that increasingly narrow the posts, search results and advertising they receive.

“The consequence of this increasingly sophisticated personalization of results is a forced exposure to partial information, which corroborates our own ideas, reinforces our beliefs, and thus leads us into an isolation of ‘filter bubbles,'” the document said.

The dicastery called on Catholics to burst those bubbles by purposefully expanding their sources of information and by trying to understand people with whom they have differences.

The growing sophistication of artificial intelligence, fake news and “deep fake” images and videos also require education and a critical look at what people find online, the document said.

Asked, for example, about the AI-generated photo of Pope Francis in a puffy white jacket and jeweled crucifix that went viral in March, Msgr. Ruiz told reporters that the dicastery is studying ways to give people “the resources to know when they are seeing a real photo, real video or real audio of the Holy Father and not something else.”

In calling Catholics to make an “examination of conscience” about their use of social media, the document said that self-examination should start with how it impacts “three vital relationships: with God, our neighbor and the environment around us.”

With the document, the dicastery launched a website – fullypresent.website – where people can download the document, find a study guide to it and join a “community of faith communicators” to reflect and share best practices.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The Catholic Church’s current Synod of Bishops should not be a “parliament for demanding rights,” but a “journey in accordance with the Spirit,” Pope Francis said.

The synod, which seeks to gather input from all baptized Catholics on building a listening church, is not “an occasion for following wherever the wind is blowing, but the opportunity to submit to the breath of the Spirit,” he said.

Pope Francis delivers his homily during his Pentecost Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican May 28, 2023. Pope Francis called on Catholics to invoke daily the Spirit who gives “harmony to the world” and “directs the course of time and renews the face of the earth.” (CNS photo/Lola Gomez)

In his homily for Pentecost Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica May 28, the pope said that the Holy Spirit is “the heart of synodality and the driving force of evangelization.”

“Without him, the church is lifeless, faith is mere doctrine, morality only a duty” and “pastoral work mere toil,” he said. “We often hear so many so-called thinkers and theologians who give us cold doctrines that seem mathematical because they lack the Spirit.”

Pope Francis, seated to the side of the basilica’s main altar, spoke without difficulty just two days after he had cleared his day’s schedule due to a fever.

Brazilian Cardinal João Braz de Aviz, prefect of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, was the main celebrant at the altar alongside Cardinals Giovanni Battista Re, dean of the College of Cardinals, and Leonardo Sandri, vice dean.

Reflecting on St. John’s account of Jesus breathing on the apostles to impart the Holy Spirit, Pope Francis urged Christians to seek harmony in the church without doing away with the differences that enrich its character.

“The Spirit does not inaugurate the church by providing the community with rules and regulations, but by descending upon each of the apostles, every one of them receives particular graces and charisms,” he explained. The Spirit “does not eliminate differences of cultures but harmonizes everything without reducing them to bland uniformity.”

Embracing difference, the pope said, is key to resisting the temptation to look back in time with nostalgia or become “caught up in our plans and projects.”

At Pentecost, however, “the life of the church began not from a precise and detailed plan, but from the shared experience of God’s love,” he said.

Pope Francis asked Christians to invoke the Holy Spirit daily to create harmony where there is division in the church and beyond.

“Let us think of the wars, so many conflicts, it seems incredible the evil of which we are capable. Yet fueling our hostilities is the spirit of division, the devil, whose very name means ‘divider,'” he said.

Conversely, the Holy Spirit “opposes the spirit of division because he is harmony, the Spirit of unity, the bringer of peace.”

“If the world is divided, if the church is polarized, if hearts are broken, let us not waste time in criticizing others and growing angry with one another,” Pope Francis said, “instead, let us invoke the Holy Spirit.”

The pope encouraged Christians to reflect on their relationship with the Holy Spirit and asked them to develop a faith that is “docile in the Spirit,” and not “stubbornly attached” to “so-called doctrines that are only cold expressions of life.”

“If we want harmony let us seek (the Spirit), not worldly substitutes,” he said.

At the end of Mass, Pope Francis he smiled and waved to onlookers as he was taken down the basilica’s central nave while seated in a wheelchair.

Reciting the “Regina Coeli” prayer with an estimated 15,000 people gathered in St. Peter’s Square after the Mass, Pope Francis again spoke of the synod, asking people to join special prayers planned for May 31, the end of the month traditionally dedicated to Mary.

“At the conclusion of the month of May,” he said, “Marian shrines around the world are planning moments of prayer to support preparations for the upcoming ordinary assembly of the Synod of Bishops,” which is scheduled to meet in October at the Vatican. “We ask the Virgin Mary to accompany this important stage of the synod with her maternal protection.”

“And to her we also entrust the desire for peace of so many peoples throughout the world, especially of the tormented Ukraine,” he said.

(OSV News) – Ahead of the U.S. bishops’ June meeting, pastoral experts told OSV News they are looking forward to progress on issues impacting health care, Hispanic Catholics and persons with disabilities.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) will hold its spring plenary assembly in Orlando, Florida, June 14-16. As USCCB president, Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services, will address the bishops as well as oversee the proceedings. Archbishop Christophe Pierre, papal nuncio to the U.S., also will address the bishops. The public sessions June 15-16 will be livestreamed on the USCCB website at www.usccb.org.

Bishop David J. Malloy of Rockford, Ill., center, votes alongside other prelates June 14, 2018, during the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ spring assembly in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The USCCB’s 2023 spring assembly will be held in Orlando, Fla., June 14-16. (OSV News photo/CNS file, Bob Roller)

Amid prayer and dialogue sessions, the bishops will survey a number of topics, including the the bishops’ three-year National Eucharistic Revival, currently underway, and preparations for two major events: the 2024 National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis, which is the culminating event of the revival, and World Youth Day with Pope Francis, which will take place Aug. 1-6 in Lisbon, Portugal.

Although the plenary agenda has not been finalized, the bishops also are expected to discuss a plan for ongoing priestly formation, priorities for the USCCB’s 2025-2028 strategic plan, and translations of texts for the Liturgy of the Hours, and provide consultation on the canonization causes for the “Shreveport Martyrs,” five priests who heroically ministered to victims of an 1873 yellow fever epidemic in Shreveport, Louisiana.

In addition, the bishops will likely discuss revising a portion of their “Ethical and Religious Directives (ERDs) for Catholic Health Care Services” — specifically part three, which covers the relationship between medical professionals and patients.

The topic is both “critical and timely,” Dr. Timothy Millea, a retired spine surgeon and chair of the Catholic Medical Association’s Health Care Policy Committee, told OSV News.

“The relationship between the clinician and the patient has been increasingly under attack on so many levels,” said Millea.

Conscience rights for Catholic medical professionals are of particular concern, especially when clinicians are asked to perform procedures that violate their religious beliefs, he said.

Millea said the ERDs would benefit from an “(expansion) of the discussion on respect for the conscience and religious beliefs” of both clinicians and patients.

“We can accept that they’re asking us something we cannot do, and they … should not expect us to do that — nor should we be intimidated, threatened, or punished by our employer or the government,” said Millea.

Charleen Katra, executive director of the National Catholic Partnership on Disability in Washington, told OSV News that she will be on hand at the June meeting for talks on a new pastoral statement addressing persons with disabilities in the life of the church.

Since the bishops’ first such statement was published in 1978, there has been “a rise in autism and in mental illness diagnoses,” as well as “a broader understanding of disability and the many facets of (related) needs,” said Katra.

Language around disability also has shifted over the past four decades, highlighting “the person before any diagnosis or descriptor” and providing “more respectful, accurate communication that honors the dignity of the person,” she said.

Katra said an updated statement should contain greater “emphasis on the giftedness and vocations of persons with disabilities in the church, and the blessings that faith communities received from their active engagement.”

Focusing on “spiritual themes of hope and joy” in pastoral ministry to persons with disabilities can “help remove stigmas” and “a stance of pity,” Katra said.

Also likely on the June agenda will be discussion of the National Pastoral Plan for Hispanic/Latino Ministry, developed from the September 2018 Fifth National Encuentro of Hispanic Ministry, “a major exercise of consultation in a spirit of synodality,” said Hosffman Ospino, associate professor and chair of religious education and pastoral ministry at Boston College’s School of Theology and Ministry.

Coming some 36 years after the bishops’ first such document in 1987, the plan “will likely emphasize areas of pastoral action in the context of Catholic Hispanic ministry as identified by pastoral leaders and researchers during the last decades” and should be seen as “an affirmation” of that work, Ospino told OSV News.

In the intervening years, the number of Hispanic Catholics has dramatically increased, accelerating the need to prioritize “the accompaniment of young Hispanic Catholics, supporting Hispanic families and forming Hispanic pastoral leaders,” he said.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Francis called the migration crisis between Mexico and the United States a “serious problem” and praised a U.S. bishop working along the border during an interview with Telemundo journalist Julio Vaqueiro.

In the interview, broadcast May 25, the pope was shown photos of a baby wrapped in a blanket and placed inside a suitcase to be taken across the Rio Grande into the United States.

Pope Francis waves at a participant during a meeting of Scholas Occurentes, an educational initiative, held at the Augustinianum Institute for Patristic Studies in Rome May 25, 2023. Julian Vaqueiro, a Telemundo journalist seen in front holding a microphone, was the event’s master of ceremonies, and spoke with Pope Francis in an interview released May 25. (CNS photo/Lola Gomez)

“It’s a serious problem there,” the pope said in response. “On the other side (of the border) there is a great man, Bishop Seitz” of El Paso, Texas.

“This bishop feels (the problem),” Pope Francis said. “The problem of migrants is serious, it’s serious there and it’s serious here,” he said about Europe, particularly “along the Libyan coast.”

Speaking about his own experience as a child of immigrants, and now as an immigrant in Rome, the pope said that every person who leaves his or her homeland “misses the air of their birthplace.”

“The mate you make in a thermos yourself is not the same as the mate your mom or your aunt makes for you,” he said, referring to the caffeinated herbal drink popular in Argentina.

Vaqueiro asked Pope Francis about his meeting May 13 with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The pope said Zelenskyy asked for his help in returning Ukrainian children who have been taken into Russia and told the pope to “not dream much about mediations.”

Since the outbreak of the war, the Vatican has avoided openly condemning the Russian government and has offered itself as a mediator for peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine.

“Really, Ukraine’s bloc is very strong, it’s all of Europe, the United States, so it has a lot of strength,” Pope Francis said to explain why a Vatican mediation did not appear immediately feasible. “But what really pained (Zelenskyy) and what he asked for collaboration on was trying to get the children back into Ukraine.”

More than 19,000 Ukrainian children have been forcibly deported into Russia or Russian-held territories according to a Ukrainian government website. The U.N. Human Rights Office has classified Russia’s illegal transfer of children into its territories as a war crime.

In response to a question on abortion, Pope Francis said that a fetus is a “living being, I’m not saying a person, but a living being.”

“Is it licit to eliminate a living being to resolve a problem?” he asked. “Is it licit to hire a hitman to resolve a problem?”

On abuse, the pope said that priestly celibacy “has nothing to do” with the sexual abuse of minors by the clergy, since, he said, abuse is committed at high rates within families and schools by married persons too.

Vaqueiro, who served earlier in the evening as master of ceremonies at Pope Francis’ meeting with members of Scholas Occurentes, a Vatican-related educational initiative, asked the pope what still needed to be done to realize the reforms discussed by the cardinals in the lead up to the conclave that elected him pope just over 10 years ago.

“Everything,” Pope Francis said. “It’s curious, as you do things, you realize everything that still needs to be done; it’s something insatiable.”