St. Margaret of Scotland, or Margaret of Wessex, was an English princess born in Hungary to Princess Agatha of Hungary and English Prince Edward the Exile around 1045. Her siblings, Cristina and Edgar the Atheling were also born in Hungary around this time. Margaret and her family returned to England when she was 10-years-old and her father was called back as a potential successor to the throne. However, Edward died immediately after the family arrived, but Margaret and Edgar continued to ...

Pope Leo XIV appeals for an end to discrimination and persecution against Christians, and prays that all violence may cease and believers may work together for the common good.

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In his Angelus address during the Jubilee of the Poor, Pope Leo XIV reflects on the persecution Christians will face at the end times and our call to “bear witness to the truth that saves the world; to the justice that redeems peoples from oppression.”

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Pope Leo XIV celebrates Mass to mark the Jubilee of the Poor, and urges leaders of nations to listen to the cry of the poorest, saying they remind us that there can be no peace without justice.

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Around 20 people are believed killed in a terrorist attack at a hospital run by religious sisters in the North Kivu village of Byambwe, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with missionaries denouncing the “shameful silence” of the international community.

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On the ninth World Day of the Poor, the European Laudato Si’ Alliance calls on the EU to address the global debt crisis affecting the most vulnerable. Through its “Turn Debt into Hope” campaign, the alliance urges fair, transparent solutions to reduce poverty and promote justice.

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Speaking with Vatican News, Cate Blanchett, Spike Lee, Leslie Mann, and Kenneth Lonergan share their responses to Pope Leo’s call to use their roles in the world of cinema to help others “rediscover a portion of the hope that is essential for humanity to live to the fullest.”

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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Meeting an international cast of film directors and actors, Pope Leo XIV spoke about the power of cinema to help people "contemplate and understand life, to recount its greatness and fragility and to portray the longing for infinity." 

Sitting in the front row of the Vatican's frescoed Clementine Hall Nov. 15 were, among others: directors Gus Van Sant and Spike Lee and actors Monica Bellucci, Cate Blanchett, Viggo Mortensen and Sergio Castellitto, who played the traditionalist Cardinal Tedesco in the 2024 film "Conclave."

In a video released a few days before the meeting, Pope Leo said his four favorite films were: "It's a Wonderful Life," the 1946 film directed by Frank Capra; "The Sound of Music," the 1965 film by Robert Wise; "Ordinary People," the 1980 film directed by Robert Redford; and "Life Is Beautiful," Roberto Benigni's 1997 film.

Pope Leo asked the directors and actors to "defend slowness when it serves a purpose, silence when it speaks and difference when evocative."

"Beauty is not just a means of escape," he told them; "it is above all an invocation." 

"When cinema is authentic, it does not merely console, but challenges," he said. "It articulates the questions that dwell within us, and sometimes, even provokes tears that we did not know we needed to express."

Pope Leo acknowledged the challenges facing cinema with the closing of theaters and the increasing release of films directly to streaming services.

The theaters, like all public cultural spaces, are important to a community, he said.

But even more, the pope said, "entering a cinema is like crossing a threshold. In the darkness and silence, vision becomes sharper, the heart opens up and the mind becomes receptive to things not yet imagined." 

At a time where people are almost constantly in front of screens, he said, cinema offers more. "It is a sensory journey in which light pierces the darkness and words meet silence. As the plot unfolds, our mind is educated, our imagination broadens and even pain can find new meaning."

People need "witnesses of hope, beauty and truth," Pope Leo said, telling the directors and actors that they can be those witnesses.

"Good cinema and those who create and star in it have the power to recover the authenticity of imagery in order to safeguard and promote human dignity," he said.

Being authentic, the pope said, means not being afraid "to confront the world's wounds. Violence, poverty, exile, loneliness, addiction and forgotten wars are issues that need to be acknowledged and narrated."

"Good cinema does not exploit pain," Pope Leo said. "It recognizes and explores it."

"Giving voice to the complex, contradictory and sometimes dark feelings that dwell in the human heart is an act of love," he told them. "Art must not shy away from the mystery of frailty; it must engage with it and know how to remain before it."

Coming to the Vatican during the Jubilee of hope, he said, the directors and actors join millions of pilgrims who have made the journey over the past year.

"Your journey is not measured in kilometers but in images, words, emotions, shared memories and collective desires," the pope told them. "You navigate this pilgrimage into the mystery of human experience with a penetrating gaze that is capable of recognizing beauty even in the depths of pain, and of discerning hope in the tragedy of violence and war."

The pope prayed that their work would "never lose its capacity to amaze and even continue to offer us a glimpse, however small, of the mystery of God."

 

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Leo XIV fulfilled a promise made by the late Pope Francis to return to Canada's Indigenous communities artifacts -- including an Inuit kayak, masks, moccasins and etchings -- that have been held by the Vatican for more than 100 years.

The pope gave 62 artifacts to the leaders of the Canadian bishops' conference Nov. 15, the Vatican and the bishops' conference said in a joint statement.

The bishops "will proceed, as soon as possible, to transfer these artifacts to the National Indigenous Organizations," which will ensure they are "reunited with their communities of origin," said a separate statement from the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops. 

Pope Leo "desires that this gift represent a concrete sign of dialogue, respect and fraternity," the joint statement said. "This is an act of ecclesial sharing, with which the Successor of Peter entrusts to the Church in Canada these artifacts, which bear witness to the history of the encounter between faith and the cultures of the indigenous peoples."

The artifacts, which came from different First Nation, Métis and Inuit communities, "are part of the patrimony received on the occasion of the Vatican Missionary Exhibition of 1925, encouraged by Pope Pius XI during the Holy Year, to bear witness to the faith and cultural richness of peoples," the joint statement said.

"Sent to Rome by Catholic missionaries between 1923 and 1925," it said, "these artifacts were subsequently combined with those of the Lateran Ethnologic Missionary Museum, which then became the 'Anima Mundi' Ethnological Museum of the Vatican Museums." 

Members of Canada's Indigenous communities have been asking for years that the items be returned. In the spring of 2022, when community representatives visited the Vatican for meetings with Pope Francis before his trip to Canada, they visited the Vatican Museums and were given a private tour of the collection.

Pope Leo's decision to give the artifacts to the Canadian bishops instead of to the government or to an Indigenous organization "is a tangible sign of his desire to help Canada's Bishops walk alongside Indigenous Peoples in a spirit of reconciliation during the Jubilee Year of Hope and beyond,” said Bishop Pierre Goudreault, president of the Canadian bishops' conference.

In 2023, the Vatican did something similar, giving the Orthodox Church of Greece three marble fragments from the Parthenon in Athens; the church then gave the marbles to the government.

Speaking to reporters in April 2023, Pope Francis had said the Canadian artifacts would be returned.

"This is the Seventh Commandment: if you have stolen something, you must give it back," he said. What can be returned to its rightful owners should be, he added.

The return of the artifacts "is an important and a right step," Joyce Napier, the Canadian ambassador to the Holy See, told Catholic News Service.

The artifacts will go first to Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, Quebec, she said. There, the Indigenous communities, their experts and elders will try to identify them and their provenance and determine where they should be kept.
 

The saint and doctor of the Church who would be known as Albertus Magnus was born sometime before the year 1200. He was probably born in Bavaria, a fact we infer because he referred to himself as "Albert of Lauingen," a town which still stands today in southern Germany. We do not know for sure all the details of his family origins, but we know he was well educated. He attended the University of Padua where he learned about Aristotle and his writings. This instruction in philosophy would ...