Women Deacons, the Vatican with Dr. Phyllis Zagano

 God Talk with Medene and James: "Women Deacons, The Vatican, and Re-Reading Romans 16 with Dr. Phyllis Zagano" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qplXDOdAfU

 

Vatican Dispatch

Trump attacks Pope Leo again ahead of Marco Rubio’s Vatican visit

by Gerard O’Connell May 5, 2026

U.S. President Donald Trump delivers an address to the nation alongside U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the White House in Washington, June 21, 2025, following U.S. strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities. Credit: OSV News photo/Carlos Barria/Pool, Reuters

This article has been updated.

On the eve of U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s visit to the Vatican on May 7—a visit  widely seen in Rome as an attempt to restore more tranquil relations with the White House—President Donald J. Trump publicly attacked Pope Leo, alleging that “he’s endangering a lot of Catholics and a lot of people” and falsely claiming yet again that for the pontiff, “it’s O.K. for Iran to have a nuclear weapon.”

Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

James Talarico confronts a hostile political climate with love.

Dominic Preziosi

May 5, 2026

Religion

Politics

Please email comments to letters@commonwealmagazine.org.

James Talarico speaks to supporters in Austin, Texas, March 3, 2026. (John Anderson/Alamy Live News)

A few months ago, a trusted source emailed me insisting I listen to Ezra Klein’s podcast interview with Texas Democratic senate candidate James Talarico. “I’ve never heard a politician speak so clearly, authentically, and movingly about his own faith and of the contribution that faith perspectives can bring to civic life,” he wrote. At the time I knew less about him than I did about his opponent, U.S. representative Jasmin Crockett, in the then-upcoming March 3 Democratic primary. Talarico would go on to beat Crockett, whose barbed and energetic attacks on Donald Trump and other Republicans had won her a wide following among Democratic voters distraught over their party’s lack of fight. To the extent I had thought about Talarico, he’d reminded me of Beto O’Rourke, whose failed campaigns for senate in 2018 and governor in 2022 (following an abandoned presidential bid in 2020) were lessons in dashed hopes: the value of being a media-anointed Democratic it-boy is limited in deep-red Texas. But Talarico, the son of a minister and a Presbyterian seminarian himself, has already separated himself from figures like O’Rourke. He’s that much talked-about but famously elusive creature: the Democrat who leads with his faith. 

A relatable pope: We sort of think we know Leo

 

News

A relatable pope: We sort of think we know Leo

Carol Zimmermann   ncr

What we knew then — and what we know now — about history's first US-born pope

 

What we knew then — and what we know now — about history's first US-born pope

Vatican

• ncr

  Christopher White

Unpacking the data behind the ‘Catholic revival’

Unpacking the data behind the ‘Catholic revival’

by Mark M. Gray April 30, 2026

Nicholas DeRosa is baptized by Father Patrick Riegger, pastor of St. John the Evangelist Church in Center Moriches, N.Y., during the Easter Vigil on April 8, 2023. Credit: OSV News photo/Gregory A. Shemitz

Did the Catholic Church in the United States experience a surge in adults entering the faith in 2026? Unfortunately, there will be no precise and official word from the church about what happened with new entrants this Easter for more than a year. But we have a glimpse of what we might eventually see from the most comprehensive research available, conducted by Stephen Spiewak, a director of marketing for the Hallow prayer app. According to Hallow, “The average American diocese is seeing 38 percent more people joining the church in 2026 compared to 2025.”

Posted inFaith and Reason

Cardinal Cupich: What the Gospel demands in times of war

by Blase J. Cupich May 4, 2026

Pope Leo XIV releases a dove with community representatives at the conclusion of a peace meeting at St. Joseph Cathedral in Bamenda, Cameroon, April 16, 2026.

Editor’s note: This essay was adapted from remarks by Cardinal Blase Cupich upon receiving the “Blessed are the Peacemakers Award” from Catholic Theological Union on April 29.

Scripture scholars point out that the Greek word translated “peacemakers” (eirēnopoioi) appears only once in the Bible, in the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5:9). It is exceptional both in its linguistic rarity and its provocative political context. In calling peacemakers “sons of God,” Jesus subverts the Roman propaganda of the Pax Romana that calls Caesar the “peacemaker” and “son of God.” For Jesus, the true children of God are not the generals who pacify through conquest and military force, but those who enter a conflict for the sole purpose of restoring shalom, a Hebrew concept of wholeness and justice. 

The divinization of Trump is precisely why the Church Fathers wrote the creeds

 

Guest Voices

Opinion

The divinization of Trump is precisely why the Church Fathers wrote the creeds

Karen E. Park   NCR