St. Mary's Church

La tradición de bautizar a los hijos de los trabajadores vaticanos se remonta a 1981, cuando fue instaurada por san Juan Pablo II. Las dos primeras ceremonias tuvieron lugar en la Capilla Paulina, y desde 1983 se celebran en la Capilla Sixtina.

León XIV impartió el primero de los sacramentos de iniciación cristiana a 20 niños, hijos de empleados vaticanos, en la Capilla Sixtina

Con el Bautismo del Señor concluye el Tiempo de Navidad. La Iglesia nos invita a contemplar nuevamente a Jesús, pero en una segunda “epifanía” (manifestación) de sí mismo: como Segunda Persona de la Santísima Trinidad.

La dictadura de Nicaragua anunció hoy la liberación de “decenas de personas” que estaban encarceladas, tras la presión de Estados Unidos y al cumplirse 19 años del régimen de Daniel Ortega y su esposa y “copresidenta” Rosario Murillo.

Ante el testimonio de los jóvenes peregrinos, el Santo Padre invitó a la multitud a reflexionar en que “todos nosotros, en diversos niveles, somos responsables de su futuro, que es el futuro del mundo”

El Papa León XIV dijo que cuando ora por los jóvenes pide una vida santa para todos porque los quiere; durante su encuentro con los jóvenes de Roma este sábado 10 de enero en el Aula Pablo VI en el Vaticano.

El Santo Padre enfatizó en la importancia de la conexión del Obispo de Roma con las conferencias episcopales y las Iglesias locales

El Papa León XIV ofreció una bella oración a los franciscanos, que hoy en la Porciúncula, en Asís, comienzan las celebraciones por los 800 años de la muerte de San Francisco de Asís.

Jan 10, 2026 / 10:12 am (CNA).

Assessing the impact of the Catholic Church’s first American pope was front and center at the 106th annual meeting of the American Catholic Historical Association (ACHA), which met in Pope Leo XIV’s hometown of Chicago from Jan. 8–11.

During a panel on the subject, Catholic scholars noted some of the historic caricatures of what an American papacy would be like and compared that to the first eight months of Leo’s actual papacy.

At the outset of the panel, University of Notre Dame history professor Kathleen Sprows Cummings referenced the 1894 Puck magazine cartoon titled “The American Pope,” which depicts the first apostolic delegate to the United States, Cardinal Francesco Satolli, sitting atop a church labeled the “American headquarters” and casting a shadow of then-Pope Leo XIII over the entire country.

Sprows Cummings noted the cartoon illustrates “fears about papal intervention in the United States” at a time when the country was receiving waves of Catholic immigrants from countries such as Ireland and Italy.

As Catholics became more settled in American society in the subsequent decades, she said some of those prejudices began to lessen and pointed to the 1918 election of Catholic Democrat Al Smith as New York’s governor. By this point, Catholics had become “much more confident about their place in American culture.”

During the same early 20th-century period, the United States also began to rise as a superpower. Sprows Cummings noted that predominant concerns about an American pope shifted to Vatican concerns over the “Americanization of the Catholic Church.”

America magazine’s Vatican correspondent, Colleen Dulle, said some of those concerns were evidently mitigated in the person of then-Cardinal Robert Prevost, whose service to the Church included many years as a missionary and bishop in Peru as well as in Rome as the head of a global religious order, the Augustinians.

Sprows Cummings said the College of Cardinals clearly saw in Cardinal Prevost the “pastoral presence, administrative savvy, and global vision” that the Church needed at this time and that he was “not elected in some flex of American power.”

Miguel Diaz, the John Courtney Murray, SJ, chair in public service at Loyola University Chicago, noted that some of Leo’s actions have actually amounted to the opposite of flexing American power, such as his focus on the dignity of migrants, which he contrasted to the policies of the Trump administration.

Diaz, who served as U.S. ambassador to the Holy See under former President Barack Obama, said Leo is “a different symbol, from America first to America cares.”

He emphasized that having an American pope is significant amid the country’s political debates because “he can say things and he will be listened to.”

The panelists also discussed what Leo’s papacy may look like moving forward, with Dulle noting that only this year are there clear signs of him charting his own programmatic course, as the events and itinerary of the 2025 Jubilee were primarily developed for Pope Francis.

Up until now, she said, he has been mostly “continuing the Francis initiatives in a different style.”

She noted Pope Leo’s management of this week’s consistory — a meeting between the pope and the College of Cardinals — where the pontiff gave them four topics to choose from, which were all in line with Francis’ priorities: synodality, evangelization, reform of the Curia, and the liturgy. The cardinals chose synodality and evangelization.

Dulle said Leo is seen as “a consensus-builder” who aims to build consensus around the Church’s priorities. She noted Pope Leo’s announcement this week of a regular schedule of consistories, with the next one set for June. This approach is emerging as a “hallmark of how he governs the Church,” Dulle said.

Brian Flanagan, the John Cardinal Cody chair of Catholic theology at Loyola University Chicago, also emphasized Leo’s strong appeal to the cardinals and bishops in efforts to reach consensus, in keeping with the pope’s role as a preserver of unity.

Flanagan said he sees Leo exercising the papacy as not so much “at the top of the pyramid but as at the center of conversation.” He said this is likely influenced by Leo’s past as leader of a religious order — the Order of St. Augustine — rather than a diocese because the orders are “global, diverse, and somewhat fractious.”

“You can’t govern a global religious community without getting people on board,” he said.

El Papa León XIV nombró a Mons. Felice Accrocca, hasta ahora Arzobispo de Benevento, nuevo Obispo de Asís-Nocera Umbra-Gualdo Tadino y Foligno, reuniendo a las dos jurisdicciones in persona Episcopi. El obispo electo llega el día en que se inician las celebraciones por los 800 años de la muerte de San Francisco de Asís.