Category: Diocese of Scranton News

(OSV News) – Artificial intelligence, migration and signs of Church renewal are expected to be on the agenda when the nation’s Catholic bishops hold their annual fall meeting in the coming days.

In a press release last month, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops named the three topics as likely issues for discussion during the bishops’ upcoming Nov. 16-19 plenary assembly in Baltimore. The gathering’s public sessions on Nov. 17 and 18 will be livestreamed via the USCCB website.

Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City, USCCB president, and Archbishop Gabriele G. Caccia, apostolic nuncio to the U.S., will open the public sessions with addresses to the bishops.

According to the USCCB press release, the agenda is slated to feature an update on the bishops’ recently created AI task force, which is led by Bishop Oscar Cantú of San Jose, California – home to Silicon Valley and the hub of AI development.

On Oct. 16, the USCCB announced the full list of the committee’s eight episcopal members, who include Cardinal Blase J. Cupich of Chicago, and its three lay consultants: theologian and ethicist Charles Camosy of The Catholic University of America, philosopher Meghan Sullivan of the University of Notre Dame, and Kim Daniels, director of Georgetown University’s Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life.

The task force will focus on underscoring the centrality of human dignity and the common good in AI development – a message explored at length by Pope Leo XIV in his encyclical “Magnifica Humanitas.”

A year after releasing their high-profile “special pastoral message on immigration” – which pushed back on several hardline Trump administration policies and opposed “the indiscriminate mass deportation of people” – the bishops will also be briefed by the conference’s Committee on Migration.

The USCCB Committee on Cultural Diversity in the Church, chaired by Bishop Robert J. Brennan of Brooklyn, New York, will provide a status report on the Intercontinental Guadalupan Novena, a multiyear prayer ahead of the 500th anniversary of Mary’s apparition as our Lady of Guadalupe in 1531.

The USCCB also noted a planned “panel presentation on recent signs of new life in the Church,” pointing to “a marked increase in the number of people entering the Church, and surveys indicating that young people are showing renewed interest in religion.”

In recent years, religion demographers have disagreed as to whether year-over-year religious disaffiliation has reversed, with some noting methodological problems (particularly with opt-in surveys) in certain studies.

In March, researcher Mark Gray of the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University told OSV News that “statistical evidence of an overall rise in Catholics is not yet available.”

Pew Research Center has previously found that while the multiyear decline in Christianity in the U.S. may have leveled off, Catholics see the greatest net losses of believers compared to other religions in the U.S.

Data indicates that for every one person received into the Catholic Church, another 8.4 individuals have left the faith, either altogether or for another worship tradition – up from the figure Pew cited in 2014, when 6.5 Catholics left for every one received into the Church.

Rounding out the tentative agenda will be votes on several action items.

Among those are USCCB guidelines on diocesan finance reporting and socially responsible investment and the conference’s 2027 budget.

A new edition of the Lectionary for Mass and Book of the Gospels, an annual observance of a Day of Prayer for Racial Justice and a move to update the USCCB’s pro-life pastoral plan will also be considered.

The bishops will weigh in on two canonical consultations for potential sainthood causes – those of Maria Middleton, a Philadelphia-area teen who heroically maintained her faith amid an inoperable and fatal brain tumor; and Thomas Steven Vander Woude, a Virginia man who died to save his son from drowning in a septic tank.

Several key leadership positions will also be decided upon at the assembly, with the bishops electing a new conference secretary as Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Indiana, completes his interim term, having been chosen to do so after the previous secretary, Archbishop Coakley, was elected USCCB president. Six USCCB committee chairs and a new general secretary for the conference will also be elected.

LIMA, Peru (OSV News) – Pope Leo XIV arrived in Lima Nov. 11 for the much-anticipated final leg of his 12-day apostolic journey to South America, landing in the country that the pope described as “one of my many homes.”

The visit marks Pope Leo’s first return to Peru since his election and brings him back to a country where he spent two decades that shaped his ministry as an Augustinian missionary and bishop in Peru. He first arrived in Peru as a missionary priest in 1985 and later returned to lead the Diocese of Chiclayo, serving as its bishop from 2015 to 2023.

In his very first speech as pope, he gave a special shoutout in Spanish from the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica to “my beloved Diocese of Chiclayo, in Peru,” where, he said, “a faithful people has accompanied its bishop, shared its faith and given so much, so much, to continue being a faithful Church of Jesus Christ.”

For the people of Peru, the apostolic visit is not just a welcoming of the Vicar of Christ; it’s the return of a missionary, a neighbor and a shepherd who understood the realities of those who lived there, particularly the poor and the marginalized. Many signs and welcome banners with images of the pope are spread across the streets of Chiclayo as the city awaits his return.

“It feels like the return of a family member who’s been away,” Mildred Camacho, Pope Leo’s 31-year-old goddaughter, told OSV News the day before his arrival.

Camacho, who was named after Pope Leo’s late mother, Mildred, is serving as a volunteer for the papal visit. Then-Father Robert Francis Prevost was just 40 years old when she was baptized shortly after turning 1 in August 1996 in Chulucanas, Peru.

The papal flight touched down at the Callao Air Base in Lima at about 5 p.m. local time after traveling around 2,000 miles on a four-hour, 20-minute flight from Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Peru’s President Keiko Fujimori welcomed Pope Leo at the foot of the stairs, and two children presented him with flowers. A children’s choir sang hymns in Latin and people in the crowds lining his walkway shouted with excitement as he greeted people, especially babies and children, and accepted gifts.

Pope Leo’s first stop in Peru was at the Palacio de Gobierno for the official welcome ceremony and a private meeting with Fujimori, who in July became the country’s ninth president in 10 years.

People lined the streets waving and cheering to catch a glimpse of the papal motorcade as Pope Leo traveled from the airport to the city center. The Holy See estimated 3 million people were present on Lima’s streets to welcome Pope Leo that evening.

The pope addressed the nation’s political authorities at Lima’s Grand National Theater that evening in his first speech in Peru.

“This return visit holds a very special meaning for me,” he said. “My history with Peru began long before the Lord entrusted me with the Diocese of Chiclayo. For decades, I shared in the lives of its people, listened to their concerns, and learned from their faith. Many opened the doors of their homes to me, shared their table with me — and, of course, some good ceviche — and made me feel like one of their own.”

Noting he received Peruvian citizenship in 2015, he added, “That act symbolized a bond that this people had been weaving into my life long before. Today I understand how much of this land remains with me and how much of my own story also belongs to you.”

Now as pope, he said, he recognizes how the Lord was “forming me as a shepherd” while in Peru.

“If I were granted the chance to relive those years, I would do so with joy, embracing both their
happy moments and their difficulties,” he said. “That is why I can tell you, with deep gratitude, that I am also returning to my homeland.”

He spoke about the impact of the Gospel on Peru’s history when it was first proclaimed there 500 years ago. “The faith took deep root in these lands and found expression in their traditions and in countless works of charity,” he said. “Suffice it to recall that the first flower of Latin American holiness bore the name ‘Rosa,’ and that this Rosa was Peruvian” — a nod to St. Rose of Lima, a Dominican tertiary who lived in Peru’s capital 1586-1617, and was the first canonized saint of the Americas.

He urged the officials to listen to the Peruvian people, noting that “Democratic life implies recognizing that no one has all the answers and that differences do not prevent us from sharing a sincere concern for the good of the country.”

“I would like to encourage everyone to cultivate honesty, integrity, and a willingness to engage with others — qualities that sustain trust among people and give strength to the life of institutions,” Pope Leo said.

Families should not be deprived of peace, which, for them, includes “going out to work without fear, caring for one’s children, and returning home with peace of mind,” he said.

The Associated Press has reported that crime, extortion and killings have been on the rise in Peru, with homicides reaching 10.7 per 100,000 ?inhabitants, up from 5.8 five years ago.

The pope acknowledged the suffering caused by violence and the Church’s desire “to remain close to those who endure it,” he said. He also said that “providing for one’s family with dignity is also part of that everyday peace” and that development has a “cultural, moral, and spiritual” dimension as well.

“There are goods that no economic prosperity can replace: peace of conscience, the certainty of being loved, and the freedom to seek the truth and to guide one’s life according to it,” he said.

Among Peru’s challenges is its inequality and poverty: In 2025, 25.7% of the Peruvian population was living in poverty, according to government data.

Stressing the need for unity in the country, Pope Leo also said that “To love a people is to desire that everyone may live with dignity among them, to take an interest in them, and to be willing to offer something of oneself for their good. It is a sentiment that I have come to understand better thanks to you, and which I wish to share today with those who hold public office,” he said.

The pope also listed different expressions of solidarity preserved in Peru, such as communal work projects, women running soup kitchens and meal programs, and the different ways families help one another in times of difficulty.

Through the intercession of Mary and all the saints and blesseds of the country, the pope asked God “that the love of Christ may help you to recognize in every Peruvian a brother or sister, and in each one, yet another reason to love your homeland.”

He concluded the speech asking for God’s blessings upon Peru and all his people.

On his second day in Lima Nov. 12, Pope Leo expects to meet with Peru’s bishops and lead mid-morning prayer at the Cathedral Basilica of St. John the Apostle and Evangelist with the country’s Catholic community. He plans to give a speech outside the cathedral on the challenges and hopes of the Peruvian people. That evening, Pope Leo is scheduled to join young people and college students at the National Stadium for a prayer vigil.

In addition to Lima, the capital and largest city of Peru, Pope Leo will also visit Chiclayo, where he will celebrate a large outdoor Mass; Cusco, the former Inca capital in the Andes; and Pucallpa, a city on the Ucayali River in the Amazon rainforest that has long been a center of Catholic missionary outreach before arriving back in Rome on Nov. 17.

WASHINGTON (OSV News) – Support for the death penalty among U.S. adults has dropped below the majority level for the first time since 1971, a new Gallup poll found.

Forty-nine percent of U.S. adults said they are in favor of the death penalty for convicted murderers, while another 45% said they are opposed, the Nov. 10 poll said. While Gallup called the findings statistically similar to last year’s rate of 52% approval, the new poll marks the first time support for the practice has been a minority position since 1971, when it was also at 49%.

Gallup said the last time support was lower than its current findings was in 1966, when a record-low 42% favored the death penalty. Support peaked at 80% in 1994, it said. Gallup said it first measured Americans’ opinions about the death penalty in 1936.

The decline was primarily driven by declines in support for the practice among Democrats and younger generations of U.S. adults, Gallup said.

Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy, executive director of Catholic Mobilizing Network, a group that advocates for the abolition of capital punishment in line with Catholic teaching, said in written comments to OSV News, “These results are a clear indication that fewer and fewer people are buying the false rhetoric that the death penalty is effective or fair.”

“Quite the contrary, in fact: Capital punishment introduces more violence and trauma to families, to our communities, and to society,” Vaillancourt Murphy said. “It’s encouraging to see the continued shift away from the culture of death and toward a culture of life.”

Laura Porter, executive director of the U.S. Campaign to End the Death Penalty, said in a statement, “This is the second poll in a row to show that we are at a pivotal turning point in public opinion on the death penalty, as Americans have been horrified by the recent botched executions, as well as the proposal to livestream an execution. At the same time, both Republican and Democratic governors have been granting clemencies at an increasing pace. The death penalty is being seen for what it is, an utter failure.”

Gallup said the findings are from a poll conducted Oct. 1-19, which began the day after the failed execution of Tennessee death-row inmate Christa Pike. Tennessee has suspended executions in the state for an investigation.

Also during that timeframe, President Donald Trump called off Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s plans to livestream the execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan by firing squad in December. The plan was met with widespread condemnation, including from U.S. bishops. A poll released Oct. 15 by The Washington Post, ABC News and Ipsos found the overwhelming majority of Americans opposed Hegseth’s plan to livestream the execution.

The Catholic Church’s official magisterium opposes the use of capital punishment as a violation of the inherent sanctity of human life, and advocates for the abolition of the practice worldwide.

Pope Francis revised the Catechism of the Catholic Church in 2018 to clarify the Church’s teaching that capital punishment is morally “inadmissible” in the modern world “because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.”

The teaching was reiterated by Pope Leo XIV in an Oct. 10 X post for the World Day Against the Death Penalty.

(OSV News) – Pope Leo XIV traveled to Córdoba in central Argentina, where he recalled the example of Argentina’s saints — who spread the Gospel and tirelessly served peoples in a rugged frontier — while emphasizing the enduring importance of missions.

Celebrating Mass outside an aircraft manufacturing facility on the outskirts of Argentina’s second-largest city on Nov. 10, Pope Leo spoke of St. José Gabriel del Rosario Brochero and St. María Antonia de Paz Figueroa, “who were called by the Lord and sent on mission, without even realizing how extraordinary their evangelizing work would be. Indeed, we too, like all Christians, are merely humble servants, and all we must do is fulfil our duty.”

“We are all called to holiness. This is our task here on earth: to attain perfect union with God,” the pope continued. “This calling is always missionary: we must make known to others the beauty that we have come to know in Christ.”

Overflowing crowds welcomed Pope Leo to Cordóba, an industrial city of 1.6 million residents some 430 miles northwest of Buenos Aires. The city is home to the Manzana Jesuítica — the Jesuit Block — which was founded by the Society of Jesus in 1599, where Pope Francis spent two years in the early 1990s living in an austere room as a Jesuit priest during a time of prayer and reflection.

Pope Leo celebrated Mass in front of a large cross commissioned by Father Brochero, while he was lying on his sickbed after contracting leprosy while working to tend to the ill and forgotten. He was known as the “gaucho priest” who traveled the vast Andean foothills on mule to evangelize and serve Catholic populations in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

“This priest was truly in love with the Lord and knew how to draw strength for his life from prayer,” Pope Leo said in his homily. “Only those who have experienced friendship with Jesus Christ are capable of undertaking the task of evangelization; only those who know they are loved by the Lord are capable of extending his kingdom of charity and justice, devoting all their energies to proclaiming the Gospel, armed with nothing but the crucifix and the holy rosary.”

The pope also remembered St. María Antonia de Paz Figueroa, known affectionately as Mama Antula.

She “knew how to combine contemplation with service to neighbor, recognizing that the greatest act of fraternal charity is to bring others closer to God,” Pope Leo said. “As my revered predecessor Pope Francis reminded us, the poor need God and people who express the power of Christian love in their lives. Following this same inspiration, Mama Antula tirelessly traveled the length and breadth of this country to show countless people the path to heaven.”

Pope Leo also cited other examples important for Argentine Catholics, telling the estimated 650,000 people attending Mass in Córdoba, “These saints and blesseds have already fulfilled their mission on earth. Today, it is our turn to follow the radiant example of holiness they have left with us.”

He added, “We celebrate this Holy Mass for the sanctification of the people of Argentina, for the sanctification of all of you. Open your hearts, and with God’s grace, go forth and be holy: at school and in the town square, in family life and with friends, in the countryside and in the city, on the farm and in the office. Go, evangelize!”

Mass in Córdoba was delayed by 15 minutes after Pope Leo stopped to attend to someone in the section for people with disabilities. After Mass, the pope was expected to meet with 20 individuals chosen by the Archdiocese of Córdoba’s vicariate for the poor, according to local media. They included a migrant community leader, a survivor of human trafficking and a person still searching for the remains of their parents who were disappeared nearly 50 years ago during the country’s military dictatorship.

Pope Leo is scheduled to address priests, religious and seminarians in Córdoba, then return to Buenos Aires for a youth vigil. On Nov. 11, his last day in Argentina, the pope will visit a prison in Buenos Aires, then celebrate Mass in front of the Basilica of Our Lady of Luján, home to the national patroness — then fly onward to Peru.

Gigantic crowds turned out for Pope Leo’s visit to Argentina, the second stop on a three-country apostolic trip to South America that began Nov. 6 in Uruguay.

Pope Leo celebrated Mass with 2.5 million people in the heart of Buenos Aires on Nov. 9, drawing the largest crowd of his pontificate so far, which some priests say reflects signs of renewed interest in Catholicism amid hard economic times.

“Leo comes to renew our missionary calling, our baptismal vocation,” Father Kevin Córdoba, a priest from southern Chabut province, who attended the Mass in Córdoba, told OSV News.

“The pope’s presence reminds us that Christ sends us to immerse the miseries of this world in a fraternal and paternal embrace, bringing with him teachings that anchor us in the mystery of unity. I hope and believe that the Spirit is being poured out upon Argentina today, like a new Pentecost.”

(OSV News) – Days after midterm elections that saw Democrats win landslide victories in Congress and flip a number of statehouses across the U.S., President Donald Trump admitted his administration’s immigration crackdown “is too tough” and suggested that he could “work something out” with Democrats on immigration.

“I’d love to do something on immigration,” the president said on the CBS News program “60 Minutes” in a nearly half-hour interview in Washington with correspondent Ross Douthat, a Catholic and well-known political analyst. The wide-ranging interview, which aired Nov. 8, started with a look at the main issues that voters went to the polls about including the war with Iran and immigration.

“I think ultimately that hurt me,” Trump said, regarding his mass deportation push. He said the policy was “too tough,” in response to Douthat’s questions about the impact of his immigration policies on the election and whether he would pursue a deal with Democrats.

“I think it (immigration) both helped and hurt. I think I got an A+ for closing up the border. I get very high marks for getting the bad ones out,” he said. “But I get hurt because we also took people that had good jobs, that — that created one violation, or breaking of the law, and that was that they came into the country illegally.”

The Nov. 3 election saw voters deliver historic losses to Trump and the Republicans with the GOP suffering staggering losses not seen since the 1948 elections. As of Nov. 9, the U.S. Senate is now at 54 Democrats and 44 Republicans, with two races too close to call; and the U.S. House has 254 Democrats and 164 Republicans with 17 races yet to be called.

Trump told Douthat, “When you go into a hotel and you have a woman that’s worked there as– you know, as a maid, as a cleaner, as a this, as a that, as a waitress — a lotta good things, great jobs — and all of a sudden, they’re being taken outta the country, it’s tough,” he said. “It’s a tough thing. But there’s a group of people that I would say, on the sort of pretty far right, that would like everybody taken out.”

He added, “There’s also people that are more modified on that. In other words, get the killers out. Get all the– the rough ones out. Get the drug dealers out. But let the people that are here — and in some cases here for 10 and 15 years — work a deal for them.”

Trump said he believed Democrats in Congress would be interested in achieving an immigration deal and that “people have already called me.”

According to the Migration Policy Institute’s latest “Fact Sheet” report, 35% of the 980,000 people deported under the Trump administration — from January 2025 through July 2026 — involved people intercepted and turned around at the border. Another 34% were initially arrested at the border and then deported by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement after ICE processed them for removal within the U.S. The remaining 31% were people arrested in the U.S. and most likely to have had years of residing in U.S. communities.

The October 2026 report also noted an increase in domestic arrests from 8,000 per month in the first three months of Trump’s term to 19,000 per month from May through July 2026.

It added that of those deported by ICE, 61% had been in the U.S. at least two years and 15% had lived in the U.S. 10 years or more. Of these immigrants, 71% had never been convicted of a crime, and 61% of those in the U.S. 10 years or more had no criminal convictions.

Catholics who work with migrants have expressed surprise and caution over the president’s words.

Dominican Father Brendan Curran, the Chicago-based promoter of justice and peace for the Dominicans of Canada and the United States, said he was “delightfully surprised by the tone and content” of what he called the president’s rhetoric on “60 Minutes.”

“Let us be clear,” Father Curran told OSV News Nov. 9. “No matter who is the leadership, no matter what party or their track record, it always has to deal with detail and actual real negotiation. What we’re delighted by is that the rhetoric is speaking of something more healthy, more productive and more reflective of what we see.”

“The vast majority of folks in our communities, especially and particularly Catholics, want decency, dignity, held above all as a highlight and priority value,” he said. “And moving in this direction as the president indicated, in part, on recognizing decency and dignity needs to be adjusted, is an absolute sign of respect for what people are asking for.”

The head of the Catholic-run Coalition for Public and Spiritual Leadership, Michael Okinczyc-Cruz, expressed reservations, and pointed out the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown continues.

The coalition sued the Department of Homeland Security a year ago and was eventually granted daily entry into the ICE facility in the Chicago suburb of Broadview to give detainees holy Communion and spiritual care.

The Archdiocese of St. Louis filed a lawsuit Oct. 5 on similar grounds, saying ICE “prohibits Catholic priests from offering, and Catholic detainees from receiving, the sacraments of confession and communion.”

“The people who are being detained are most often mothers and fathers, siblings, grandparents, people who’ve been ripped and torn away from their loved ones in their parishes, in their communities,” Okinczyc-Cruz said, calling the experience “shattering” to witness.

A joint report issued last year by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Migration and Refugee Services, the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and World Relief, found that more than 10 million Christians living in the U.S. would be vulnerable to deportation under Trump administration policies implemented in 2025. A majority of them were Catholic followed by a sizable number of evangelicals.

It also found more than 1 in 6 Catholics are either vulnerable to deportation themselves or could see a family member deported, barring law or policy changes.

“To recognize how many families have been devastated by a federal government’s actions is heartbreaking. And so we need comprehensive immigration reform in our country that is fair and just, and that offers people a pathway to citizenship,” he added.

Okinczyc-Cruz said he felt “neither hopeful nor pessimistic” about Trump’s remarks, because “the reality on the ground” is the same as before the midterm elections and after the “60 Minutes” interview aired.

Douthat noted in his narrative during the “60 Minutes” segment that an hour after the interview, Trump selected Stephen Miller, whom he called “the architect” of the administration’s mass deportation operations, to replace his White House chief of staff.

Kevin Appleby, senior policy and communications fellow with the New York-based Center for Migration Studies, pointed out immigration reform is not an easy task.

Catholic social teaching on immigration balances three interrelated principles — the right of persons to migrate in order to sustain their lives and those of their families, the right of a country to regulate its borders and control immigration, and a nation’s duty to regulate its borders with justice and mercy.

“Certainly the Church wouldn’t be opposed to a measure that moves the ball forward and we certainly wouldn’t say no to legalizing agricultural workers, for example,” Appleby told OSV News. “But in terms of an immigration reform bill, it has to include immigrants who have families, who have been here for a while, who have contributed over the years.”

Appleby expressed “healthy skepticism” regarding Trump’s remarks on making an immigration deal with Democrats.

“I would just be shocked if there was a bill that got to his desk, that would meet those criteria and that his base would allow him to sign,” he said.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (OSV News) – Pope Leo XIV met privately Nov. 9 with five people abused by clergy or Church institutions in Argentina, listening individually to their experiences during an encounter that lasted more than an hour, the Holy See Press Office said.

The meeting took place before the pope traveled to the Catholic University of Argentina for an encounter with representatives of the world of work. Earlier in the day, he celebrated Mass at Buenos Aires’ Monumento de los Españoles before approximately 2.5 million people, according to local authorities.

The five survivors were presented by the local Church, the Vatican statement said.

“The pope spoke with each of them individually, listening to their accounts, the painful experiences they had endured, and their suggestions for strengthening paths toward healing within the Church,” the statement said.

At the conclusion, Pope Leo greeted the survivors all together, blessed them and thanked them for the meeting and their “testimony of faith.”

“To them — and through them, to the other victims whom it was not possible to meet — the pope conveyed his closeness and his commitment to strengthening measures for protection, well-being, welcome, and accompaniment within the Church,” the statement said.

The encounter came during Pope Leo’s second day in Argentina, a country where the dimensions of the abuse crisis remain unknown. Argentina has not conducted the kind of nationwide investigation or accounting undertaken in other countries including the United States, Australia, France and Germany.

BishopAccountability.org, a U.S.-based watchdog organization, lists nearly 100 priests, religious brothers and women religious publicly accused of abusing minors or vulnerable adults in Argentina. Other allegations remain under criminal or canonical investigation.

The Argentine bishops have established a national safeguarding council and issued guidelines for handling allegations. Survivors and advocates, however, continue to criticize the absence of a comprehensive national accounting and the limited information released about canonical proceedings.

Among Argentina’s best-known cases is that of Father Julio César Grassi, a once-prominent priest who operated homes for disadvantaged children. Father Grassi was convicted in 2009 of sexually abusing and corrupting a minor and sentenced to 15 years in prison.

While archbishop of Buenos Aires and president of the Argentine bishops’ conference, the future Pope Francis commissioned a four-volume study challenging the criminal case against Father Grassi. Father Grassi remains imprisoned, with his sentence scheduled to end in May 2028. He remains a priest but is prohibited from publicly exercising ministry while awaiting a definitive Vatican decision.

At the Antonio Próvolo Institute in Mendoza, deaf and hearing-impaired children were sexually abused between 2005 and 2016. Fathers Horacio Corbacho and Nicola Corradi were sentenced in 2019 to 45 and 42 years in prison, respectively. Father Corradi later died while under house arrest. In September, former nun Kumiko Kosaka was sentenced to 20 years for her role in the abuse and mistreatment of students.

The case most directly connected to Pope Francis involved Bishop Gustavo Oscar Zanchetta, one of his first episcopal appointments. Bishop Zanchetta resigned as bishop of Orán in 2017 and was subsequently given a position in the Vatican’s financial administration.

Pope Francis later acknowledged that he initially accepted Bishop Zanchetta’s defense against allegations involving sexual images found on his phone. An Argentine court convicted Bishop Zanchetta in 2022 of sexually abusing two seminarians and sentenced him to four years and six months in prison. His conviction became final in February 2025, and he was conditionally released that September. Bishop Zanchetta remains publicly identified as bishop emeritus of Orán, and the Vatican has not announced the outcome of its canonical proceeding.

Argentina’s crisis is part of a broader reckoning across Latin America. The pope is expected to encounter that reality again in Peru, where he previously served as bishop of Chiclayo and helped survivors of the now-suppressed Sodalitium Christianae Vitae obtain a Vatican investigation and reparations.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (OSV News) – Pope Leo XIV celebrated Mass with 2.5 million people in the heart of Buenos Aires on Nov. 9, drawing the largest crowd of his pontificate so far.

“Dear families, I encourage you to take a leading role in evangelization! The Church in Argentina needs you,” the pope said in his homily at the iconic Buenos Aires intersection at the “Monumento de los Españoles.”

“This Church is renewed and filled with enthusiasm when families, animated by faith, pray together and live out their ministry of proclaiming the Good News,” he added.

The crowd stretched for miles down several of Buenos Aires’ wide avenues intersecting at the monument with Argentines wearing hats and sunglasses under the bright sun and enthusiastically waving Vatican and Argentine flags as the popemobile passed by.

— A moment of ‘tremendous spiritual joy’ —

Among those in the front of the crowd was Alejandro Ribeiro, a seminarian from the Diocese of Zárate-Campana, who wore a traditional Argentine gaucho beret and sipped on mate in the hours leading up to the papal Mass.

“When I arrived, I shed a few tears, because ever since I felt this vocation, my dream has been to see the pope,” Ribeiro told OSV News.

“It’s hard to go to Rome, but the pope came here,” he added. “I’m really excited— — my heart is really racing.”

Pope Leo’s Nov. 8-11 visit to Argentina, the second leg of his 12-day tour of South America, is the first papal to Argentina in nearly 40 years.

For Sister Zulma Usqueda from Argentina’s Hermanas Misioneras Catequistas de Cristo Rey (Congregation of Missionary Catechist Sisters of Christ the King), the pope’s visit is a moment of “tremendous spiritual joy”.

Her congregation, which was an educational charism, was founded in Argentina by Servant of God Mother Mercedes Pacheco, whose motto was “to do good without making noise.”

“You really can’t explain it in words because it’s so moving — it overwhelms the soul,” Sister Zulma said.

“The pope has come to bring a message to all of us who are here — to those who have lost their faith, to those who don’t believe, and to those who haven’t been able to make it here due to a physical condition,” she told OSV News. “This Holy Father, the Vicar of Christ, calls us together, so that (God’s) embrace will reach everyone.”

— Pope Leo offers advice to families on passing on the faith —

In his homily, Pope Leo underlined the importance of the Christian family in society.

“The family is the place where faith, human virtues, a culture of work, respect for the elderly, the defense of life and fidelity to one’s word are handed on. Do not give in to those who dismiss the Christian family as outdated. On the contrary, today more than ever, it remains a pillar amid the many insecurities of our time,” the pope said.

“Open the doors of your homes to Christ!” he added. “Speak naturally to your children about Jesus, and remain united to him.”

The pope recommended simple gestures to pass on the faith in the intimacy of one’s home, “a blessing before meals, a prayer before going to bed, forgiveness and mutual listening, grandparents teaching their grandchildren to pray, going to Mass on Sundays, and preparing for a retreat or a pilgrimage.”

“The family is a privileged place for coming to know and encounter Christ,” he added.

— Argentine Catholics reflect on Pope Francis —

Pope Leo also paid tribute to his predecessor, the late Pope Francis, in a moment that was met by enthusiastic applause from the crowd.

“Our beloved Pope Francis, who was Bishop of this city, expressed with great conviction that ‘the family is called to join in daily prayer, to read the word of God and to share in Eucharistic communion, and thus to grow in love and become ever more fully a temple in which the Spirit dwells’,” Pope Leo said, quoting Pope Francis’ post-synodal apostolic exhortation “Amoris Laetitia.”

A native son of Buenos Aires, Pope Francis never returned to his homeland after his election as pope in 2013.

Catholics in the crowd acknowledged they had been waiting for their former bishop of Buenos Aires, Pope Francis, to visit, but said they were no less excited to be in the presence of his successor.

“It is sad, but I think Pope Leo XIV makes up for it all. Pope Francis is in heaven,” Iris Callupe told OSV News.

Ribeiro said that while Pope Francis never visited Argentina, he believes the late pope “had each of us in his heart.”

“We’ve always awaited Pope Francis with the same excitement we feel now for Pope Leo,” Sister Zulma said. “God knows. He had a better plan.”

“Pope Francis has already been here; we experienced it, we shared it –not as pope, but as archbishop …Today Pope Leo brings us a message — perhaps the one Argentina needs right now,” she added.

— Mass on the feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica —

Pope Leo noted that the Mass was offered for the feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica, saying the feast is a “sign of God the Father’s saving presence in his Church.”

“Our families often face difficult circumstances: instability, social hardship, precarious employment, domestic violence, painful separations and addictions that destroy young people’s futures and damage family relationships,” he said. “Amid all these hardships and crises, God’s word shines out as a source of hope: God is in our midst; we need not be afraid.”

Pope Leo entrusted all the families in the crowd to the Virgin Mary, Our Lady of Luján, and to her spouse, Saint Joseph, at the end of his homily, which was met with cheers of “Viva el papa!”

— Morning visit to ‘Little Cottolengo’ —

The pope began the day with a visit to a disability care home in Buenos Aires, the Don Orione “Little Cottolengo” in Claypole, known as “Pequeño Cottolengo Argentino Don Orione”, south of Buenos Aires.

Pope Leo listened to the testimonies of people with disabilities, including a moving story of Marta Torres, wearing grey braids on her head. Born with cerebral palsy, she can’t walk nor see.

“My mother abandoned me the day before my birthday; she left home and never returned. … My father and my siblings took care of me from a very young age,” she said.

Over the years, facing “many hardships, including hospitalizations, surgeries, and numerous treatments,” she searched for a home, and she found one in “Little Cottolengo.”

“For me, the Cottolengo has been a beacon of light that illuminated my life. It was not just a place to live, but a place where I was welcomed, sheltered, and loved,” Torres said.

Over time, she wrote a book, as she wanted her story “to be known and heard because I wish to do good.” Before handing her book to Pope Leo, she said “I offer this as an act of thanksgiving to God for having bestowed so many things upon me.”

The other woman who also gave her testimony — Norma Donato — exchanged the traditional papal skullcap, or zucchetto, with Pope Leo, to cheerful applause.

While visiting the charitable center, the pope also met privately with people suffering from addictions.

Argentina’s President Javier Milei, who met with Pope Leo upon his arrival in Buenos Aires, has defended extensive audits of the disability pension system as necessary after serious irregularities were uncovered. However, the government’s austerity measures, including cuts to disability programs and as well as other social services and government programs — along with measures that have eroded retirees’ purchasing power amid inflation — affected people with disabilities and their families.

“They’ve taken away so many things from us, many benefits, many therapies,” Clarisa Islas, whose two children attend “Little Cottolengo,” told OSV News before the papal trip.

“We are juggling to ensure our children don’t lose their rights or the visibility they have achieved,” the mother, whose two children have cerebral palsy and autism, said.

In his speech at “Little Cottolengo,” Pope Leo said, “A nation’s progress is also measured by how it welcomes all people with disabilities and particular needs.”

“In this special moment, I would like to share with you all my hope for this country: that Argentina may be capable of performing great works of charity, such as we see here, where the love of Christ triumphs over individualism and exclusion.”

In the afternoon, Pope Leo will meet with members of social movements at the Catholic University of Argentina before meeting with leaders of different religions. In the evening, the pope will celebrate vespers with bishops and Argentinian synodal teams at the Metropolitan Cathedral of the Most Holy Trinity.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (OSV News) – Pope Leo XIV arrived in Buenos Aires Nov. 8 urging Argentina’s civil leaders to safeguard democracy, protect the unborn, and engage in respectful dialogue across political divides after meeting with President Javier Milei at the Casa Rosada presidential palace.

The papal flight from Uruguay on an Aerolineas Argentinas plane dubbed “Pontifex Maximus” touched down after 4:30 p.m. at Buenos Aires International Airport after a short 40-minute flight across the Río de la Plata. Milei, Argentina’s libertarian leader since 2023, personally welcomed Pope Leo on the tarmac.

Argentina is home to more than 43 million Catholics, according to the latest Vatican statistics from 2022, which state that over 92% of the country’s population is baptized Catholic. However, according to Pew Research Center, only 58% of adults self-identify as Catholic.

People waving Vatican flags lined the avenues of Buenos Aires, nicknamed the “Paris of South America,” as the pope made his way to the Casa Rosada, where Milei resides, for a private one-on-one meeting with Argentina’s self-described “anarcho-capitalist” leader who was raised Catholic, but has expressed a desire to convert to Judaism.

In the pope’s first speech in Argentina in the Palacio Libertad, Pope Leo honored his predecessor Pope Francis, who was a native son of Buenos Aires, but never returned to his homeland after his election as pope in 2013.

“My arrival in this land is personally meaningful,” Pope Leo said. “Today, as his successor in the Petrine ministry, I am in some sense retracing his steps in this country where the personal history of Pope Francis would later be joined to that of the entire Church.”

Pope Francis, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, led the archdiocese of Buenos Aires from 1998 until he became pope. As the bishop of Buenos Aires, he was known for riding the subway, and regularly visiting poor barrios, or neighborhoods, of the city.

Milei, who previously derided Pope Francis as a “filthy leftist,” later eulogized him as “the most important Argentine in history” and shed tears while attending the late pope’s funeral in 2025. He told Radio Mitre in Argentina that he had apologized to Pope Francis. “He told me, ‘Don’t get upset, these are youthful mistakes.'”

In the Palacio Libertad, with Pope Leo seated nearby on stage, Milei lauded Pope Francis again, saying in his opening speech that Pope Francis’ death “left a huge void in our entire people, both for his faithful and for those who do not belong to the Church.”

“He was an exceptional figure who, through his humanity, inspired us all, regardless of our faith,” Milei said. “A person of immense generosity whom I had the honor of knowing firsthand.”

Pope Leo spoke after the Argentinian president in a diplomatic and measured tone, underlining the importance of ethical technological development, respect for the environment and the dignity of every human person.

Democracy, the pope underlined, is “strengthened by the daily conduct of public life: through willingness to listen, through careful use of words, through the patient search for agreement, and through the ability to see those who think differently as fellow citizens with whom we share a common future.”

“In this way, a spirit of trust is created, one that enables a society to deal with its differences without losing sight of the things that keep it united,” he said.

“Those entrusted with public office are charged with a particularly demanding task. Authority is most authentic when it is exercised as service, when it looks beyond the immediate, and when it uses its power to promote the welfare of all,” Pope Leo added.

In his speech, Pope Leo highlighted Argentina’s unique culture from the tango, “born from the encounter of different neighborhoods, ports and backgrounds” to the sharing of a drink of mate, which “turns a moment of relaxation into an opportunity for conversation and closeness.”

The pope also urged introspection on the part of Argentina’s leaders, saying, “a nation must seriously ask itself where it has failed when its young people have to leave their homeland in order to make their dreams come true.”

“What place do children not yet born occupy in our decision-making? Before asking ourselves what kind of world we will leave our children, we must first recognize their dignity,” Pope Leo added.

“That same dignity requires that particular concern be shown for those affected by illness, dependency and disability,” he said. “Here, too, we have a duty to care for others, to alleviate suffering, to accompany them, and to ensure that every person feels that his or her life always retains a value that no circumstance can diminish.”

Pope Leo’s speech to Argentina’s political authorities marked the end of public events on his first day in Buenos Aires. After leaving the presidential palace, Pope Leo was expected to hold a private meeting with members of the Augustinian Order at the apostolic nunciature before ending his day. Pope Leo will remain in Argentina until Nov. 11.

The pope is scheduled to celebrate an outdoor Mass in the center of Buenos Aires, one of the most populous cities in Latin America, on the morning of Nov. 9 before meeting with social movements at the Catholic University of Argentina, with religious leaders at the Palacio San Martín, and with the local Catholic community at the Metropolitan Cathedral of Buenos Aires.

On Nov. 10, Pope Leo plans to fly to Córdoba, the country’s second-largest city, to celebrate Mass on the grounds of the Military Aviation School and meet with Church leaders at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption. In the evening, the pope plans to preside over a youth vigil in Buenos Aires.

The pope’s visit to Argentina is scheduled to culminate in a Mass at the Marian shrine of Our Lady of Lujan, Argentina’s patroness and one of its leading pilgrimage sites, on the morning of Nov. 11 before he flies north to his much anticipated “homecoming” in Peru.

FLORIDA, Uruguay (OSV News) – Pope Leo XIV made a pilgrimage to Uruguay’s national Marian shrine Nov. 8, where he shared a message of hope for mothers who feel the grief of seeing their children fall away from practicing the faith they were raised in.

“I know that many of you carry a very specific sorrow. You taught your children to pray, and today they no longer do so. You used to attend Mass together, and it has been years since they entered a church. You spoke to your grandchildren about God, and now you do not know if those words left a mark. Sometimes you wonder if you did something wrong or if it was all futile,” Pope Leo said in his homily.

The pope pointed to the witness of St. Monica, who “prayed for years for a son who seemed to be drifting further and further from God, but she never stopped trusting in his grace.”

“Mothers and grandmothers: never tire of passing on the faith! Preach with your lives as well as with your words. Insist on prayer, love, and hope; insist on them in season and out of season (cf. 2 Tim 4:2). Do so with patience, without harshness or discouragement. Even if your loved ones seem far from God, continue to place them before him. Do not stop blessing them, accompanying them, and simply reminding them of what they once received,” Pope Leo said.

“There are doors that you cannot open, but God can,” he added.

In his homily, the pontiff also offered words of encouragement to fathers and grandfathers, urging them to imitate St. Joseph.

“Dear fathers and grandfathers, young people need to see that you pray, receive the sacraments, treat your wives with respect, ask for forgiveness and live with integrity, even when doing so requires sacrifice. Children learn a great deal by seeing that their father can kneel before God without feeling that he is any less of a man for doing it,” Pope Leo said, to loud applause from those gathered at Mass.

“Your children and grandchildren need to see that the faith occupies a genuine place in the lives of the men in your family,” the pope added.

— Pope Leo at the beloved Uruguayan pilgrimage site —

The pope celebrated an outdoor Mass with 50,000 people in front of the National Shrine of Our Lady of the Thirty-Three, the cathedral basilica of the Uruguayan city of Florida on the morning of Nov. 8, the date of the country’s annual national pilgrimage to the Virgin Mary, which is closely tied to Uruguay’s historic struggle for independence from Brazil.

At this beloved pilgrimage site, Pope Leo renewed the consecration of Uruguay to the Virgin Mary, first made by St. John Paul II in 1988, imploring God that through Our Lady’s intercession “he may thwart the works of the evil one and preserve beloved Uruguay from whatever might lead it away from Christ.”

The unique Marian title of Our Lady of the Thirty-Three takes its name from the image from the 33 revolutionaries whose 1825 campaign sought to free the territory then known as the Eastern Province from the Brazilian Empire.

The Assembly of Florida, which declared independence Aug. 25, 1825, met beside the town’s church, and its members venerated the Marian image preserved there.

“This small image is linked to a decisive moment in Uruguay’s history. In 1825, those who were fighting for the freedom of this land also turned to Mary, to place the beginning of their efforts under her protection. That gesture reminds us that the history of peoples, too, cannot be fully understood without reference to God,” Pope Leo said.

“Since that time, generations have come and gone, circumstances have changed, including the relationship of many Uruguayans to the faith. Yet she has remained here.”

— Virgin of the Thirty-Three, the liberator of Uruguay —

The current cathedral basilica in Florida building was built in 1887, but the wooden image of the Virgin Mary preserved inside the national shrine traces its history back further to the late 18th century and has become closely associated with Uruguay’s national story. Carved from Paraguayan cedar, it is a small representation of the Immaculate Conception believed to have originated in the nearby Jesuit missions.

“This devotion did not originate in any miraculous event or an apparition, as many Marian devotions do,” Father Gabriel González Melano, a priest of the Diocese of Florida, told OSV News.

“It was the people who began to identify her with that campaign,” Father González said. “From 1825 onward, they gradually began to call her the Virgin of the Thirty-Three, with many also dubbing her the liberator of Uruguay.”

— Pilgrims overjoyed to meet the pope —

Martín Lage Ponce de León, who came on pilgrimage to the shrine with his family from the capital city of Montevideo, told OSV News that Our Lady of the Thirty-Three “represents a lot for all the people in Uruguay.”

“We are really excited about receiving Pope Leo,” he said. “It’s something that we are really grateful that he chose Uruguay to start his trip in South America. And we consider that this is because of something Uruguay really needed … his words of mission.”

Twenty-six-year-old Ximena Tejeria watched eagerly from her wheelchair as Pope Leo greeted the crowd of thousands waving Vatican flags from the popemobile. “This is my first time seeing the pope,” she said of Pope Leo. “I previously met Pope Francis, and now we get to see (Pope Leo) up close, which is wonderful for all of Uruguay, too. It’s been many years since a pope visited, so this whole event is a source of joy for everyone.”

Natalia Baccino, 45, from the capital city of Montevideo has made many pilgrimages to Florida’s Virgin in her life, but this was the first papal Mass at the shrine.

“I woke up really early at 4:30 a.m. to arrive here because … the routes, there were too many people coming here,” Baccino told OSV News.

— Argentina is next stop for Pope Leo after Uruguay —

The pope traveled about 60 miles by car from Montevideo to arrive at the shrine. The road included one pit stop to pray in the parish of St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus, or Santa Teresita, in Juanicó, to greet the mayor and to offer a blessing to people gathered there.

“The principal reason for Leo visiting the shrine is, of course, that the pope is coming to Uruguay, so he had to visit the country’s patroness,” Father González said. The convergence of her feast and the national pilgrimage, he added, makes the occasion particularly significant.

St. John XXIII authorized the image’s canonical coronation in 1961 and declared Our Lady of the Thirty-Three patroness of Uruguay in 1962. In 1975, Uruguay’s government designated the cathedral and the image national historic monuments, and in 1994 the cathedral became the National Shrine of Our Lady of the Thirty-Three.

At the end of Mass, Bishop Alfonso María Bauer Ormazábal of Florida told Pope Leo, “We are a country of close-knit communities, of sharing mate, and of gatherings of friends. And that country was born here, in Florida: next to the so-called ‘Altar of the Motherland,’ our Independence was declared, under the gaze of the Virgin of the Thirty-Three.”

“Today, we face different struggles, and we ask Mary to accompany us in these as well:
the poverty of so many children and the lack of work, loneliness and a sense of meaninglessness, addictions and mental health issues, social fragmentation, and violence. With her, we wish to defend the dignity of every person, daughter and son of God,” the bishop said.

The Mass in Florida marked the final public event of Pope Leo’s Nov. 7-8 visit to Uruguay. After Mass and lunch with local bishops, he is scheduled to fly to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he will meet President Javier Milei in the afternoon.

Uruguay’s national Marian shrine is one of three Latin American pilgrimage sites Pope Leo is visiting during his Nov. 6-17 tour of South America.

In Argentina, Pope Leo is expected to celebrate Mass at the Basilica of Our Lady of Luján, the country’s national Marian shrine. In Peru, he intends to visit Zaña, where relics of St. Turibius of Mogrovejo, the missionary archbishop of Lima and patron of the Latin American episcopate, are preserved.