Category: Diocese of Scranton News

SCRANTON – As Catholics throughout the world celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ – commonly known as Corpus Christi Sunday – the Most Rev. Joseph C. Bambera, Bishop of Scranton, invites the faithful of the Diocese of Scranton to join him for a Pontifical Mass at 12:15 p.m. on Sunday, June 7, at the Cathedral of Saint Peter, 315 Wyoming Avenue, Scranton.

Corpus Christi is one of the Church’s most beloved feasts, inviting Catholics to reflect with gratitude and wonder upon the gift of the Holy Eucharist – the true presence of Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament.

The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ reminds us that the Eucharist is the source and summit of our faith, nourishing us to become Christ’s presence in the world and strengthening us for lives of discipleship and service.

This year’s celebration comes as the fruits of the National Eucharistic Revival continue to be felt across our country.

Between 2022 and 2025, Catholics throughout the United States were invited to renew their faith in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist through prayer, formation, Eucharistic adoration, pilgrimages, and public witness. That spirit of renewal remains visible today as the 2026 National Eucharistic Pilgrimage journeys along the East Coast, carrying the Blessed Sacrament from St. Augustine, Florida, to Philadelphia, where it will culminate during celebrations marking the 250th anniversary of the United States.

The current pilgrimage that is underway serves as a powerful reminder that Christ continues to walk with His people and calls us to place Him at the center of our lives and our nation.

For those unable to attend Sunday’s Mass with Bishop Bambera in person, CTV: Catholic Television of the Diocese of Scranton will provide a live broadcast. The Mass will also be livestream on the Diocese of Scranton website and YouTube channel, with links to the Mass made available on all Diocesan social media platforms.

(Vatican News) – Pope Leo XIV has encouraged the faithful to keep alive the public witness of faith made visible in Eucharistic processions, recalling that this week the Church celebrates the solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, also known as Corpus Christi.

“In the Eucharist, we contemplate Jesus, the bread broken and given for each of us,” Pope Leo said in his greeting to Italian-speaking pilgrims at the end of his Wednesday general audience on June 3.

“Processions with the Blessed Sacrament, which take place in the streets of many towns, are an expression of popular Eucharistic devotion; in this regard, I encourage you to keep alive this beautiful public manifestation of faith,” Pope Leo said.

In the Church’s liturgical calendar, the feast of Corpus Christi falls on the Thursday following the solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. However, in most U.S. dioceses, the celebration of the solemnity is transferred to the following Sunday so that more people can participate. This year the solemnity will be celebrated June 7.

In his greetings to pilgrims, the pope also offered special words of closeness to priests and religious serving in the Middle East.

“I would like to address a special word to the priests and religious of the Middle East: I accompany your ministry and the hopes of your respective countries with my prayers and my blessing,” he said.

The Holy Father also greeted the Daughters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, members of the Montfortian Family and the Sisters of Our Lady of the Cenacle, encouraging them “to be a sign of hope for all those who thirst for God, for his truth, and for his peace.”

(OSV News) – Pope Leo XIV appointed Maria Montserrat “Montse” Alvarado, president and chief operating officer of EWTN News, as prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication on June 2.

Alvarado, a Mexican-American Catholic who grew up in Miami, will succeed Paolo Ruffini, whom Pope Francis appointed in 2018 as the first lay prefect of a dicastery. She will assume the post Nov. 1.

She will be the first laywoman who is not a religious sister to lead a dicastery, and, at age 39, will be by far the youngest prefect in the Roman Curia.

The first woman to head a Vatican dicastery was an Italian Consolata Missionary, Sister Simona Brambilla, who was 59 when Pope Francis appointed her in January 2025 as prefect of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.

Pope Leo XIV confirmed his predecessor’s appointment of another high ranking woman at the Vatican, Sister Raffaella Petrini, a Franciscan Sister of the Eucharist, as president of the office governing Vatican City State in May 2025. He named Sister Nina Benedikta Krapic, a Sister of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, as the deputy director of the Holy See Press Office in February.

Currently based in Washington, Alvarado holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from Florida International University and a master’s degree in political management from George Washington University. She began working in communications for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a Washington-based nonprofit law firm that defends religious freedom cases, in 2009, rising to vice president and executive director in 2017.

In 2021, she began a professional transition to Catholic media, becoming the host of the weekly news show “EWTN News In Depth” while still working for the Becket Fund. She was named president and COO of EWTN News in 2023.

Pope Francis established the Vatican Dicastery for Communication in 2015 as part of his reform of the Roman Curia. The dicastery oversees the Holy See’s communications systems, including Vatican News, Vatican Radio, L’Osservatore Romano, Vatican Media, the Holy See Press Office, the Vatican publishing house, the Vatican Printing Press and the Filmoteca Vaticana.

“The Dicastery for Communication has embedded in its very DNA the duty to remain constantly attuned to the rapidly changing world of communication,” Ruffini said in a statement on the day of Alvarado’s appointment.

“I have now entered the final lap of the race, before the moment when — in the long journey that is our working life — having reached the age of 70, the age set for retirement, I will pass the baton to Montserrat Alvarado as the next prefect,” he said. “Over the last couple of years, we have come to know each other. And in the coming months, we will work closely together, in the spirit of communion that unites us in the Church.”

In a statement about Alvarado’s appointment, Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, congratulated her on behalf of the conference.

“We are grateful for her work as a Catholic journalist, faithfully covering the work of the bishops, and also for her advocacy and dedication to upholding religious freedom and human dignity at the Becket Fund,” the archbishop said. “I assure her of our prayers as she continues to serve the universal Church with her unique talents.”

Alvarado was received in a private audience with Pope Leo XIV together with Archbishop Nelson J. Pérez of Philadelphia on Sept. 6, 2025, to discuss the pope’s digital outreach to American Catholic youth at the National Catholic Youth Conference in Indianapolis.

“I was recently told by a dear friend to thank God for the doors that open that we never knock on,” Alvarado said in a statement after her appointment. “While this appointment was unexpected, I receive it with a sincere desire to serve the Holy Father as he begins his pontificate.”

“At the beginning of his pontificate, Pope Leo XIV asked journalists and communicators to never separate the search for truth from the love with which we must humbly seek it, and to preserve human faces and voices which are God’s indelible mark on our humanity in each of us. It is with this understanding of our vocation as communicators that I receive this appointment with deep gratitude, humility, and trust in the Lord,” Alvarado said.

VATICAN CITY (OSV News) – With the FIFA World Cup opening this month, Pope Leo XIV has dedicated his June prayer intention to the power of sport to build bridges between cultures and nations, releasing a video prayer calling on athletes, coaches and fans alike to embrace the field as a space of encounter rather than division.

The Vatican released the monthly “Pray with the Pope” video on June 2 in which the pope prayed that “sport may always be a school of fraternity, not of empty rivalry, a space of encounter, not exclusion, a path of peace, not violence.”

The pope’s official prayer intention for the month reads, “For the values of sport: Let us pray that sport may be an instrument of peace, encounter and dialogue between cultures and peoples, and may promote values such as respect, solidarity, and personal growth.”

The American pope’s prayer intention comes as his home country will begin co-hosting the World Cup on June 11 alongside Mexico and Canada. A record 48 national teams will compete across 104 matches in the three host nations through July 19.

“Lord of life, we thank you for the gift of sport, for those who glorify God through the exercise of their bodies, for the friendships born on the field and the joy of playing as a team,” Pope Leo said in the video, recorded inside the Church of San Pellegrino in Vatican City.

“May those who play, train or cheer discover in sport a universal language that brings cultures together, unites peoples, and sows respect, solidarity and personal growth,” he added.

From the first days of his pontificate, Pope Leo has been known for his love of sport. He is an avid tennis player and a fan of Major League Baseball’s Chicago White Sox.

In his first interview as pope, he was asked who he would cheer for if the United States and Peru (where he served as a missionary for years and is also a citizen) were to face each other in the World Cup. He said he would cheer for Peru. As it happens, neither Peru nor Italy qualified for the 2026 tournament, sparing him any potential conflict of allegiances.

In April, the pope welcomed Italian Olympic and Paralympic athletes who competed in the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Games to the Vatican. In May, the pope received the players and management of Inter Milan, winners of this season’s Italian Serie A title, for a Vatican audience.

In the prayer video, Pope Leo drew a connection between athletic life and the Christian journey.

“Lord Jesus, may every sport become a parable of life lived with you, working with joy and effort, living with humility in defeat and with gratitude in the victory you offer in your Resurrection,” he prayed.

“May your Spirit never be lacking in us, making us one team, united with you to build communion and fraternity in history.”

(OSV News) – Pope Leo XIV’s acknowledgment of the Church’s role in slavery is “only proper and just,” said Bishop Roy E. Campbell Jr., who is president of the National Black Catholic Congress.

And the task ahead is to take concrete action to heal slavery’s legacy, added the prelate, who retired recently as an auxiliary bishop of Washington.

The official apology — endorsed as well by the Knights of Peter Claver, one of one of the Catholic Church’s largest historically Black Catholic lay fraternal organizations — was included in “Magnifica Humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence,” Pope Leo’s first encyclical.

Released May 25, the text invoked the wisdom of the Church’s social teaching — which articulates the means of building a just society and living out holiness in modern life — as a framework for shaping AI amid rapid technological advances, a fractured global order and accelerating threats to human dignity.

Warning against AI’s potential to cause “new forms of slavery” — especially by facilitating human trafficking and exploiting laborers, including children, in mining resource minerals for the technology — Pope Leo lamented “the delay with which both society and the Church came to denounce the scourge of slavery.”

The transatlantic slave trade saw some 12 million to 20 million Africans enslaved in various Western nations, including the U.S., over a period of four centuries.

The Church’s hesitation to address slavery spanned some 18 centuries, Pope Leo noted, describing such inaction as “a wound in Christian memory, one from which we cannot consider ourselves detached.”

The pope “is taking the initiative to admit that the Church was complicit by either allowing (slavery) or looking the other way, and we ask forgiveness for that,” said Bishop Campbell, who continues to serve as pastor of St. Joseph Parish in Largo, Maryland.

Once “you recognize the wrong, and you’re sorry for the wrong,” said Bishop Campbell, the question becomes, “now, what do we do to correct it?”

He pointed to recent efforts in the Archdiocese of Washington to “honor those who were formerly enslaved and buried in unmarked graves.”

“The starting point with that (project) is one of our churches, Sacred Heart in Bowie, Maryland,” he explained.

The church and its cemetery were formerly the site of White Marsh Plantation, bequeathed to the Jesuits in 1729 by James Carroll, cousin to Archbishop John Carroll, the inaugural bishop of Baltimore.

As one of several Jesuit plantations in the state of Maryland, White Marsh had, at times, some 100 enslaved persons.

The plantation had been “the motherhouse for the Jesuits in that area” of what is now Prince George’s County in Maryland, said Bishop Campbell.

Through the use of ground-penetrating radar, he said, “we’ve identified over a thousand sites consistent with” unmarked graves.

The Jesuits have acknowledged their participation in slavery, and in 2017 the order issued a public apology addressed in particular to some 100 descendants of 272 enslaved persons, including children, the order had sold in 1838 to keep Georgetown University financially solvent.

“They said, ‘It was wrong, and this is what we’re trying to do to correct it for the descendants,'” said Bishop Campbell, who blessed the graveyard during a 2025 pilgrimage of remembrance.

“Obviously the only thing we can do is honor the memory of those who were enslaved,” he said.

But Pope Leo’s apology enables the Church “on a universal scale” to “help the descendants reach peace, and know that there’s justice,” said the bishop.

The faithful can participate in that by doing “what Our Lord calls us to do — to love, to forgive and to work to help your neighbor,” Bishop Campbell said.

That summons reaches all people of goodwill, he added.

While surveying the graveyard a few years ago, “a gentleman pulled up in his truck and said, ‘Hey, I heard y’all were clearing ground and you found unmarked graves. Me and my sons want to be part of how we can help clear the ground and identify these graves,'” Bishop Campbell recalled. “He wasn’t even Catholic; he just knew that this was a way to identify and honor those who have been treated so wrongly in their lives.”

Catholics, whether they are “Black, white or any other shade of skin color,” can work to mend the wrongs of slavery “by the way we treat those among us now,” while striving “to honor the culture, the lives of those who have gone before us,” he said.

He lamented that “unfortunately in our country, it seems like a lot of times, how you’re treated depends on how you look, what language you speak, what culture you practice.”

“We’re a nation of immigrants,” said Bishop Campbell, adding that the mission is to now “treat others the way we want to be treated … because quite honestly, we’re all one in Christ.”

WASHINGTON (OSV News) – Joining Pope Leo XIV in a worldwide rosary for peace, several hundred people gathered at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington May 30 to seek the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary to bring peace to the hearts of people and peace to nations at war.

The praying of the rosary for peace at Marian shrines throughout the world unfolded as Russia’s brutal full-scale invasion of Ukraine has entered its fifth year. The rosary also came as the United States and Iran were reportedly working on an agreement to extend a ceasefire in that war launched by the U.S. and Israel more than three months ago, while Israel has resumed bombing targets in Lebanon in its war against Hezbollah militants there.

Archbishop Gabriele G. Caccia led the rosary for peace in the basilica’s Great Upper Church. He was presiding at his first liturgy at the nation’s largest Catholic church as the new apostolic nuncio to the United States.

Following a processional hymn of “Immaculate Mary,” Msgr. Walter R. Rossi, the basilica’s rector, welcomed the participants.

“We are gathered here together with so many pilgrims present at Marian shrines throughout the world to pray to the Lord that he may grant his peace to peoples and nations,” Msgr. Rossi said, noting that the rosary for peace was happening at the end of the month of May which is dedicated to the Blessed Mother.

Pope Leo presided over the worldwide rosary for peace from the Lourdes grotto in the Vatican Gardens. The worldwide rosary was coordinated by the Vatican Dicastery for Evangelization and livestreamed from the Vatican and via the basilica’s livestream.

OSV News reported that in addition to the rosary for peace being prayed in Marian pilgrimage sites throughout the world including the Shrine of Our Lady of the Rosary in Fatima, Portugal, and the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes in France, the rosary for peace was also being prayed in war-torn places, including the Sanctuary of the Mother of God in Zarvanytsia, Ukraine, and the Shrine of St. Charbel Annaya in Byblos, Lebanon.

In his remarks, Msgr. Rossi prayed “that we might all bear witness to a coexistence among peoples built on mutual respect and fraternal sharing. May the prayer of the holy rosary become a commitment for each of us to be builders of peace.”

Before he led the rosary, Archbishop Caccia said, “Dear brothers and sisters, in communion with the Holy Father, following the example of the first Christian community, we lift up to the Lord through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary unceasing supplications for peace in the world.”

The apostolic nuncio also invited those viewing the livestream broadcast to join in the reciting of the rosary with their families. While those at the basilica prayed the rosary, they could see two video screens set up in opposite corners at the front of the sanctuary that showed scenes of the pope leading the rosary at the Vatican Gardens.

The joyful mysteries of the rosary were prayed at the basilica following related Scripture readings, and special intentions for peace were offered during the praying of each mystery.

The first joyful mystery, the Annunciation, was prayed with the intention, “Through the intercession of Mary, Queen of Peace, we pray to you Lord, for the victims of war, especially for the most vulnerable children, the elderly and the sick. Let us pray for torn families, for fathers and mothers awaiting the return of their children, and for children awaiting their return home, that no one might suffer unjustly.”

The second joyful mystery, the Visitation, was prayed with the intention, “For all those who bring a word of hope and the comfort of faith to peoples affected by war, that they may always be instruments of your mercy.”

The third joyful mystery, the birth of Jesus, was prayed with the intention, “Through the intercession of Mary, Queen of Peace, we pray to you Lord, for the medical and paramedical staffs and the volunteers who bring humanitarian aid to those most in need … (and) for all those who have welcomed refugees with open hearts, that they may never grow weary of showing generosity and solidarity.”

The fourth joyful mystery, the presentation of the child Jesus in the temple, was prayed with the intention, “Through the intercession of Mary, Queen of Peace, we pray to you, Lord, for all those who suffer the violence of war, for prisoners, and for all who endure humiliation that undermines human dignity, that they may not lose hope and may find comfort in those who dedicate themselves to overcoming violence.”

The fifth joyful mystery, finding Jesus in the temple, was prayed with the intention, “Through the intercession of Mary, Queen of Peace, we pray to you, Lord, that through the redemptive death of Jesus Christ who has reconciled the world with the Father, that wars may cease and lasting peace may reign among all nations.”

After the rosary at the basilica, Msgr. Rossi led the congregation in praying the Litany of Loreto, which included a prayer to Mary, Queen of Peace.

Archbishop Caccia offered a closing prayer and blessing, before a recessional hymn to Mary was sung in Latin.

In an interview with the Catholic Standard, Washington’s archdiocesan news outlet, Danica Stanciu said she was especially moved by the intention of the first mystery at the basilica — for victims of war including vulnerable children.

That prayer for “torn families, for fathers and mothers awaiting the return of their children, and for children awaiting their return home,” resonated with her, she said.

Stanciu — who is back in the United States to attend her son’s college graduation — has volunteered in Ukraine for the past three years for an organization seeking the return of Ukrainian children abducted by Russia during the war there.

“I’ve met these children, I’ve met mothers awaiting their return,” said Stanciu, explaining why she was initially overcome by emotion when asked about what the rosary for peace meant to her.

Expressing appreciation for Pope Leo’s call for the worldwide rosary for peace, she said, “Families need so much peace and healing, everyone affected by war. It’s not just Ukraine. Other places in the world are hurting. I can’t think of anything more urgent. I’m so grateful to our Holy Father for calling us together today.”

Originally from Michigan, Stanciu has lived in the Washington area in recent decades, where she attended St. Joseph Church on Capitol Hill. Stanciu, who is of Croatian and French-Canadian descent, has attended St. Alexander Cathedral in Kyiv while volunteering in Ukraine in recent years.

Now she is working with a friend to help set up an organization to support wives and mothers who are caretakers of severely wounded Ukrainian military veterans.

Praising the faith of the Ukrainian people, Stanciu said, “It is my experience in Ukraine that has brought me back to the Church and brought me back to God. It’s through witnessing Jesus’s love manifest in people who are in such pain and have lost so much, and treat each other with such care and dignity.”

Asked about what is needed to bring peace to Ukraine, she said, “I do believe that God and Mary’s intercession is part of the answer.”

MADRID (OSV News) – Spain has been, and hopefully will continue to be, a very missionary nation.”

Pope Leo XIV spoke these words during a brief encounter with Father José María Calderón, national director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in Spain. For Father Calderón, they reflected something more than a passing compliment from a pontiff preparing to visit the country June 6-12.

“They touched my heart,” Father Calderón told OSV News. “They strengthened my desire to continue promoting missionary awareness.”

As the first pope in modern history to have spent much of his priestly ministry as a missionary, Pope Leo arrives in Spain June 6 with a unique familiarity not only with the country itself — which he has visited almost 50 times — but also with the missionary tradition that helped shape Catholicism across much of the world.

His itinerary will take him to Madrid, Barcelona, Gran Canaria and Tenerife, where he is expected to address Spain’s parliament, inaugurate one of the towers of Barcelona’s iconic Sagrada Familia basilica and meet migrants arriving in the Canary Islands.

Yet beneath the official schedule lies a deeper connection.

From his years as an Augustinian missionary and bishop in Peru to his service as prior general of the Augustinian order, Pope Leo repeatedly encountered Spanish missionaries and witnessed firsthand the legacy of a Church that for centuries sent priests, religious and lay missionaries across Latin America, Africa, Asia and beyond.

“He has a lived experience that allows him to speak not about concepts, but about realities he has personally known,” Father Calderón said.

Father Calderón believes Pope Leo’s appreciation for Spain’s missionary history is not rooted in nostalgia.

In a February message to the priests of Madrid, the pope acknowledged the challenges posed by secularization and cultural change, but insisted that many people — especially young people — continue to search for deeper meaning and purpose.

“This is not a time for withdrawal or resignation, but for faithful presence and generous availability,” Pope Leo wrote, encouraging priests to trust that Christ is already at work in people’s lives.

The theme will likely resonate throughout his visit. In Madrid, Pope Leo is expected to preside over a Corpus Christi procession that will incorporate some of Spain’s most beloved expressions of popular piety, including traditional Holy Week pasos. Among them will be images of Our Lady of Almudena, patroness of Madrid, and Christ of Medinaceli, which will also make a pilgrimage to Santiago Bernabéu Stadium for the pope’s gathering with the faithful of the Archdiocese of Madrid.

The emphasis reflects what Father Calderón believes will be one of the pope’s central messages to Spanish Catholics.

“I am convinced he wants Spanish Catholics to regain missionary enthusiasm,” Father Calderón said.

For Pope Leo, the answer to secularization appears not to be retreat, but renewed evangelization — a theme that echoes both his own missionary experience and the centuries-old tradition that first brought the Gospel from Spain to much of the world.

Juan Vicente Boo, a veteran Vatican journalist and author of the Spanish-language biography “León XIV: El Papa de la nueva era” (“Leo XIV: The Pope of a New Era”), said the pope knows Spain better than many realize.

“After studying his biography in depth, I discovered with astonishment that he knew Spain more thoroughly than many Spaniards,” Boo told OSV News.

Pope Leo first visited Spain in July 1982 as a young Augustinian making a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. During the monthlong journey, he and fellow friars traveled across the country in a van, sleeping in tents and visiting 11 cities, including Madrid and Ávila, the hometown of St. Teresa of Ávila.

He would return frequently over the following decades.

“As prior general of the Augustinians, he eventually visited more than 30 Spanish cities over roughly 50 trips,” Boo said. “It is the country he has visited most after Italy.”

His ties to Spain, however, extend beyond travel.

Father Alejandro Moral Antón, the Spanish Augustinian who succeeded Leo as prior general in 2013, said the future pope came to know generations of Spanish missionaries during his years in Rome, Peru and throughout the global Augustinian network.

“Certainly, the pope is very familiar with Spanish missionaries and with the centuries-long history of Spain sending missionaries to Latin America and the rest of the world,” Father Moral Antón told OSV News.

The two men first met in Rome in the 1980s, when many Spanish Augustinians were studying there.

“He came to know our mentality, our way of thinking, and we constantly spoke about our missions in Latin America,” Father Moral Antón said.

That familiarity deepened during Pope Leo’s years in Peru, where he frequently encountered Spanish missionaries serving throughout the country.

Later, as prior general, he visited every Augustinian jurisdiction in the world, including missions established by Spanish provinces in Peru, Colombia, Central America, India and Tanzania.

“He was able to see up close the love we had for these missions,” Father Moral Antón said, describing a commitment rooted in the Augustinian values of communion, community and interiority.

For historians, Pope Leo’s familiarity with Spanish missionary work reflects a much broader historical reality.

“The visit of the missionary pope to the country of missions offers a magnificent opportunity to revisit Spain’s missionary work throughout history,” historian Luis Antequera told OSV News.

According to Antequera, the story began in earnest with Spain’s overseas expansion following 1492 and the arrival of missionaries in the Americas during Columbus’ second voyage in 1493.

“From the very beginning, evangelization was part of the project,” he said.

Over the centuries that followed, Augustinians, Dominicans, Franciscans, Jesuits and other religious orders established missions throughout the Americas, Africa and Asia, often becoming not only evangelizers but also educators, scholars, linguists and defenders of Indigenous peoples.

Antequera points to figures such as Dominican friar Antonio de Montesinos, whose 1511 sermon denouncing abuses against Indigenous peoples remains one of the most famous sermons in Christian history, and Bartolomé de las Casas, whose advocacy helped shape debates over the treatment of native populations.

The Augustinians also played a significant role.

“The first Augustinian arrived in the Americas in 1527,” Antequera noted, linking the order’s missionary history to the pope’s own religious family.

Spanish missionaries would eventually establish enduring Catholic communities throughout Latin America, the Philippines and other parts of the world, helping shape what is now the global center of Catholicism.

Father Calderón believes that history remains alive in the Spanish church today, and that the visit will be less about celebrating Spain’s missionary past than encouraging its missionary future: “I am convinced he wants Spanish Catholics to regain missionary enthusiasm,” he said.

Although the number of missionaries has declined significantly in recent decades, Spain remains the country with most missionaries abroad and remains the second most generous financial supporter of missionary activity, preceded only by the United States.

Whether speaking to priests in Madrid, migrants in the Canary Islands or the faithful gathered at Santiago Bernabéu Stadium, Pope Leo’s message is expected to be consistent: Spain’s missionary story is not merely a chapter of history.

(OSV News) – An annual report from the nation’s Catholic bishops shows that more than 1,000 allegations of child sexual abuse were reported in U.S. dioceses during the 2025 fiscal year, with just over 2% involving individuals who were minors in that period.

In addition, on-site auditors found weaknesses in several dioceses’ review boards and records management, as well as burnout and turnover among safe environment and victim assistance staff.

Based on costs included in the report, U.S. Catholic dioceses have, according to OSV News’ calculations, paid some $5 billion in abuse settlements and related costs from 2004 to June 2025 – a total that to date likely exceeds $6 billion when factoring in more recent settlements, such as one for $800 million reached by the Archdiocese of New York.

On May 27, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat of Child and Youth Protection and its National Review Board released the “2025 Annual Report — Findings and Recommendations on the Implementation of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.”

The report — which covered the period July 1, 2024 to June 30, 2025, with 194 of the nation’s 196 dioceses and eparchies participating — is the 23rd since the charter was established by the U.S. Catholic bishops in 2002 as a number of clergy abuse scandals emerged. Commonly called the Dallas Charter, the document lays out a comprehensive set of procedures for addressing allegations of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy, and includes guidelines for reconciliation, healing, accountability and prevention of abuse.

Data for the report came from audits conducted by StoneBridge Business Partners, a Rochester, New York-based consulting firm that provides forensic and compliance services to a range of organizations. In addition, the report includes a survey by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) on allegations and costs related to the abuse of minors.

In his preface, USCCB president Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City noted that by the end of 2025, “100% of the 196 dioceses and eparchies” in the U.S. “had participated in at least one on-site audit.”

The “historic milestone” marked “the first time since the Charter’s inception that full participation has been achieved,” he said.

At the same time, said Archbishop Coakley, “continued vigilance is essential as sexual abuse often occurs within trusted relationships, and consistent monitoring is vital to prevent harm.”

The report noted that the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux, Louisiana, was found to be non-compliant during the report period with the charter’s requirement to hold regular meetings of its diocesan review board.

Such boards, comprised of mostly lay members not employed by a given diocese, serve as confidential consultative bodies to bishops for handling abuse allegations, and are required under the Dallas Charter.

In recent years, the diocesan review board issue has emerged as a pain point, with James F. Bognar, chair of the USCCB’s advisory National Review Board, noting in his report letter to Archbishop Coakley that the secretariat has launched quarterly meetings for local review board members “to address questions and clarify the full scope” of their duties.

Deficiencies in diocesan review boards were — along with records management and “burnout, turnover and compassion fatigue” among safeguarding and victim assistance workers — among the “three areas of concern” Stonebridge identified in more than 10% of the sites it had audited during the report period.

The Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux later held its review board meeting to comply with the charter requirement. According to the report, two other dioceses did not participate in either the on-site audit or the data collection process: the Ohio-based Byzantine Catholic Eparchy of Parma, and the Michigan-based Syriac Catholic Eparchy of Our Lady of Deliverance.

Stonebridge said that during the report period, a total of 1,070 allegations had been reported by 973 survivors of childhood sexual abuse by clergy throughout the 194 dioceses and eparchies for which data was available. The number of allegations for the 2025 report marked an increase of 168 from last year’s data.

Of the 1,070 total allegations, 24 involved individuals who were minor children during the reporting period, most (17) were girls, with 6 boys and 1 child whose sex was not identified. Four of the allegations were substantiated, with 13 still under investigation and seven ruled unsubstantiated.

A total of 837 clerics were accused of sexually abusing a minor over the past reporting year, with well over half (552, or about 66%) of them diocesan priests, with the remainder members of a religious order (120), elsewhere incardinated (32), deacons (14) or “unknown” (119). Among identified clerics, close to half (45%) had also been accused in previous audit periods, the report said.

Over half (456, or 54%) of the 837 accused were deceased as of June 30, 2025. Another 17% (143) were listed as having “unknown” status, 8% (67) had been permanently removed from ministry, 5% (46) had been removed from the clerical state, and 4% (34) were in active ministry. Another 3% (29) had been temporarily removed from ministry, with 2% (17) resigning.

Safe environment training rates have remained above 99% for clergy, ordination candidates and educators, and above 98% for staff and volunteers, with rate for background checks equally high.

However, safe environment training rates have declined among children down to 89.1% in 2025 from 93% in 2018.

The CARA survey included in the USCCB’s 2025 report showed that during the audit period, responding dioceses and eparchies reported a total of 117 credible allegations of child sexual abuse by 89 diocesan or eparchial priests.

Of those, “three allegations may have involved children under the age of 18,” meaning that “the abuse occurred in the past 18 years,” said CARA. “All of the other allegations were made by adults who are alleging abuse when they were minors.”

CARA said 97% of the nation’s dioceses and eparchies participated in the survey, while 61% of the religious communities for which CARA had contact information responded.

As it has since 2004, CARA also tallied the costs of both resolving abuse claims and safe environment protocols.

For dioceses and eparchies during the reporting period, settlements totaled over $276 million, not including almost $6.3 million in additional payments to victims. Attorney fees added up to almost $89 million, with $11.4 million in “other costs” and nearly $7.4 million in support for alleged offenders.

In all, the fiscal year 2025 abuse costs for dioceses totaled $389,961,007, said CARA, which noted a 61% jump over the 2024 total of $242,799,401.

“That increase is mostly tied to the increase in the settlement amounts paid during the year 2025, which increased by 69 percent,” CARA said in the report. “This may, in large part, (be) due to the removal of the civil statute of limitations for child sex abuse allegations.”

When adding in the data from religious communities that participated in its survey, the total allegations-related costs for the Church in the U.S. within the past fiscal year rose to $483,534,316, said CARA.

CARA also noted that “dioceses, eparchies, and religious communities paid $36,853,017 for child protection efforts between July 1, 2024 and June 30, 2025,” which represented “a 1 percent increase from the amount spent on such child protection efforts in the previous reporting year ($36,558,695).”

“I hope and pray that, through collective efforts, we remain vigilant and committed to the work needed to prevent the evil of child sexual abuse — not only in the Church, but in society,” said Archbishop Coakley in the report.

PARIS (OSV News) – The relics of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, the French Visitation sister who experienced visions of Jesus revealing his Sacred Heart, will be present with the U.S. bishops in Orlando, Florida, when they consecrate the United States to Jesus’ Sacred Heart June 11.

The relics were flown from Paris to New York June 2 and will remain in the U.S. until September. As part of their plenary assembly in Orlando June 10-12, the U.S. bishops will concelebrate Mass and pray the act of consecration. The bishops also will hear reflections on the Sacred Heart ahead of the Mass.

Arnaud Bouthéon, the lay leader of the Knights of Columbus in France, will be in charge of the unusual transatlantic trip with the reliquary.

“I will personally go to the Shrine (of the Sacred Heart) of Paray-le-Monial to retrieve the reliquary and bring it to the United States,” he told OSV News.

Bouthéon will first take the reliquary to the international headquarters of the Knights of Columbus in New Haven, where the relics will be venerated during the first week of June. Then they will be taken to Orlando, Florida, for the consecration.

Meanwhile, “the arrival of the relics of Margaret Mary in the United States is an invitation to consecrate families and individuals to the Sacred Heart,” Bouthéon said.

St. Margaret Mary received visions of Jesus between 1673 and 1675 at the Monastery of the Visitation in Parais-le-Monial. Christ showed her his Sacred Heart and invited her to experience his love, mercy and tenderness. Devotion to the Sacred Heart subsequently spread thanks to St. Claude La Colombière, her Jesuit confessor, and then with the help of the entire Society of Jesus.

St. Margaret Mary was canonized in 1920, and today her relics are venerated in the Chapel of the Apparitions of her convent, where a large reliquary contains a wax effigy of her body, as well as most of her bones.

Four portable reliquaries allow St. Margaret Mary’s relics to be sent to dioceses and parishes in France and abroad. “They traveled extensively during the year of the 350th anniversary of the apparitions, between December 2023 and June 2025,” Bouthéon noted.

The reliquary that is heading to the United States is the largest of them all. Standing 1.3 feet tall, 2.3 feet long and 1.2 feet wide, it weighs nearly 150 pounds with its protective case. It contains the saint’s clavicles, two of her ribs and a small piece of her brain. It can be carried in procession using two poles and two to four bearers.

“It will have to go in the cargo hold of the plane,” Bouthéon confirmed to OSV News. “I won’t be able to keep it in the cabin.”

After the consecration of the U.S. to Jesus’ Sacred Heart, the relics will be in Denver Aug. 1-6 for the Knights of Columbus’ annual convention and then travel back to New Haven for veneration Sept. 25-27. The shrine in Parais-le-Monial hopes that dioceses will also take advantage of the relics’ pilgrimage to the U.S. and invite the relics to their churches.

This won’t be the first time Bouthéon has traveled to the United States with relics.

“In 2019, the Knights of Columbus organized a nine-month pilgrimage of a relic of the Curé d’Ars through American dioceses,” he recalled, using the French name for “the parish priest of Ars,” St. John Vianney. “It was (St. John Vianney’s) heart which I had brought with me from France. For the trip, it was officially classified as ‘organic matter.’ It fit into a small box that I carried in a backpack, which I kept with me the entire journey. It was very moving.”

“Many very positive testimonies followed this pilgrimage of the relic of the Curé d’Ars,” Bouthéon said. “That is what prompted us to organize the exhibition of the relics of St. Margaret Mary, with the approval of the rector of the shrine of Paray-le-Monial.”

The Church highly regulates the transport of relics, Bouthéon clarified.

“Such a journey requires a great deal of official authorizations, starting with that of the bishop of Autun, to whom the shrine of Paray-le-Monial is subject, and that of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in Rome,” he said. “Everything is closely supervised.”

The relics’ American pilgrimage coincides with the U.S. release of a French documentary on the Sacred Heart. Released in France in October 2025, the film depicts the apparitions of Christ and the revelations received by St. Margaret Mary.

The documentary highlights the “extraordinary, even disconcerting, nature,” of the apparitions, Bouthéon explained. “But it also features priests, religious and other witnesses who explain, in contemporary language, how the spirituality of the Sacred Heart is relevant to Christians today.”

In the documentary, “we also see many … of today’s witnesses who recount their own experience of God’s love, which they have perceived through the spirituality of the Sacred Heart,” Bouthéon added. “They explain how they came to understand that Christ awaits them in prayer for a personal relationship full of tenderness. These testimonies deeply moved people.”

The film was a phenomenal success in France – “something no one could have predicted,” Bouthéon recalled. “It quickly surpassed 500,000 admissions, which was a record.”

He added: “Many people have drawn closer to the faith after seeing it, and have wanted to visit Paray-le-Monial. It is also very successful abroad. It is a French docudrama, but it clearly shows that devotion to the Sacred Heart has a universal dimension.”

Bouthéon himself appears in the film, among those interviewed. “My family has a special devotion to the Sacred Heart,” he said. “My grandmother, my mother and my daughter are named Margaret Mary. But it was thanks to the Knights of Columbus that I rediscovered the spirituality of the Sacred Heart. Their founder, Father Michael McGivney, was devoted to it. He wore a Scapular of the Sacred Heart.”

“The veneration of a relic must be presented in an educational manner,” he stressed. “It helps us to become tangibly aware, as popular devotions do, of the mystery of the Incarnation — that God, in Jesus, came to dwell among us.”

“To personally consecrate oneself to the Sacred Heart on this occasion is to accept the reminder that Jesus has a gentle and humble heart, and that he wishes to share his tenderness with us,” Bouthéon concluded. “It is drawing closer to that burning love that is his. And it also means asking ourselves: Do I love others as Christ loves me, with gentleness and humility?”