Posted inVatican Dispatch

Pope’s brother speaks about Leo’s cancer diagnosis and recovery in new interview

by Colleen Dulle October 19, 202

Pope Leo XIV speaks with his brother Louis Prevost and sister-in-law Deborah Prevost in the papal library of the Apostolic Palace at the Vatican May 19, 2025, after the pope's private meeting with U.S. Vice President JD Vance. Credit: CNS photo/Vatican Media

Louis Prevost, the eldest brother of Pope Leo XIV, spoke about the pope’s cancer diagnosis and recovery in an interview on Fox News this weekend.

“When they did the operation, they got all the cancer out,” Mr. Prevost explained, referring to the pope’s surgery on Oct. 13 in which the lower lobe of his right lung—about one-third of the lung, where a cancerous nodule was growing—had been removed. (The Vatican has not yet confirmed whether the pope is cancer-free.)

Posted inFaith and Reason

Many U.S. Catholics hold anti-migrant views. How can the church change their hearts and minds?

by Sarah G. Hansman October 8, 2026

A woman holds a U.S. flag as she attends a pro-immigrant march and rally following a Spanish-language Mass at St. John the Evangelist Church in Riverhead, N.Y., on June 22, 2025. Credit: OSV News photo/Gregory A. Shemitz.

Church leaders in the United States at every level have stressed that xenophobia is an urgent and enduring problem. Church teaching, too, makes it clear that xenophobia and discrimination against migrants are matters that we must confront and oppose. But how? How can we invite a change of minds—or better yet, a conversion of hearts, to recognize the dignity of migrants? 

Despite the fact that migration is a central feature of the history of all three Abrahamic religions, studies show that religiosity is negatively correlated with positive feelings toward immigrants. In other words, the more religious you are, the more likely you are to hold negative views toward migration. A Pew Research study released in early 2025 showed that Christians in general (46 percent) and Catholics specifically (41 percent) were twice as likely as those of other religions and the religiously unaffiliated (both 23 percent) to say an increase in immigrant population has been “a change for the worse” in the United States. 

Cancer may change 'how' but not 'what' of Leo's papacy, pope's friend says

 

Vatican News

Vatican

Cancer may change 'how' but not 'what' of Leo's papacy, pope's friend says

Justin McLellan   ncr

Trump's deportation crackdown may influence how Catholics vote in midterms

 

Trump's deportation crackdown may influence how Catholics vote in midterms

News

• ncr

  Camillo Barone

Insisting on Winners and Losers

 

 

 

Empire and Christianity

Insisting on Winners and Losers

Sunday, October 18, 2026

READ ON CAC.ORG

 

 

Father Richard Rohr points to the creation of winners and losers as a sure sign that an “empire consciousness” is at work:  

There is an overall paradigm that I’ve been calling “empire thinking,” which is a zero-sum game. And in a zero-sum game, one can only win by causing another to lose. Unless that assumption is stated very clearly, we don’t realize how often it’s at work. It will not really be a game where I have a wonderful skill to share or a gift to be highlighted. I just have to defeat the other side. We could also call it the win-lose worldview. I want to say as strongly as I can that the win-lose worldview, the expectations of the zero-sum game, are absolutely dominant in the minds of most people. 

Posted inVatican Dispatch

Pope Leo, five days after surgery, says he will resume his work ‘gradually’

by Gerard O’Connell October 18, 2026

Pope Leo XIV leads the Angelus prayer from a window of the Apostolic Palace, following his discharge from hospital after surgery for lung cancer, at the Vatican, Oct. 18, 2026. (OSV News photo/Yara Nardi, Reuters)

A great cheer went up from some 20,000 people in St. Peter’s Square at midday on Sunday, Oct. 18, when a smiling Pope Leo XIV appeared at the window of the papal study on the third floor of the Apostolic Palace. It was the first time he had spoken publicly since undergoing surgery at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital five days earlier.

Looking well and speaking in a strong voice that showed no sign of weakness from the Oct. 13 operation, which removed the lower lobe of his right lung, the 71-year-old, Chicago-born pope began with a brief reflection on the day’s Gospel reading (Mt 22:15-21), in which Jesus says, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

Editorial: Immigration, war, democracy should be front of mind for Catholic voters

 

October 19, 2026

Editorial: Immigration, war, democracy should be front of mind for Catholic voters

NCR Editorial Staff

Canonists Warn Synod’s Canon Law Proposals Blur Lines of Church Authority

 

Canonists Warn Synod’s Canon Law Proposals Blur Lines of Church Authority

Edward PentinVatican  NATIONAL CATHOLIC REGISTER