News

Pope Leo: Catholics cannot be ‘unengaged spectators’ amid ‘injustice, discrimination and violence’

by Josephine Peterson, Catholic News Service September 2, 2026

Pope Leo XIV greets visitors and pilgrims from the popemobile while riding around St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican before his weekly general audience Sept. 2, 2026. Credit: (CNS photo/Lola Gomez)

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The faithful are called to leave behind “all passivity and indifference” toward current events and the lives of others, especially amid the “rapid and profound changes we are experiencing today,” Pope Leo XIV said at his weekly general audience.

“We cannot remain as unengaged spectators; rather, we must listen with our hearts, allow ourselves to be challenged, and become involved,” the pope said Sept. 2 in St. Peter’s Square.

Posted inFaith in Focus

We are expecting too much from the Lindsay Clancy trial

by Colleen Jurkiewicz September 2, 2026

Defendant Lindsay Clancy wipes away tears as she listens to testimony during her murder trial in Plymouth Superior Court, Plymouth, Mass., on Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2026. Credit: Greg Derr/The Patriot Ledger via AP, Pool

On Aug. 20, when Lindsay Clancy’s former mother-in-law Sue Clancy took the witness stand, Assistant District Attorney Shanan Buckingham asked her if she was aware that murder is a mortal sin in the Catholic Church.

Judge William Sullivan moved swiftly to strike the reference from the record, but I almost wish he would have let Ms. Buckingham continue. What line of questioning was she pursuing here? It left me considering what God asks of us in the face of such tragedy, what the law requires and where it falls short. 

 

The U.S.-Born Pope Is Changing U.S. Catholicism

Leo takes up issues on which the American polity is hungry for moral guidance.

E. J. Dionne Jr.

September 1, 2026

Please email comments to letters@commonwealmagazine.org.

Pope Leo XIV in Castel Gandolfo, Italy, July 19, 2026 (OSV News photo/Matteo Minnella, Reuters)

Pope Leo XIV is changing the public voice of American Catholicism. He is building on the legacy of Pope Francis, but has turned out to be better placed than Francis was to shift the direction of the U.S. Church, and not only because of his national origin (or the fact that he’s a baseball fan). Leo has focused his papacy on a series of issues—immigration, economic justice, war and peace, and the moral challenges of artificial intelligence—on which the American polity is hungry for moral guidance. He is lending support to bishops who were named by Pope Francis to shift the priorities of the American Church. His desire to give cardinals a larger role in governance has empowered some of the strongest progressive voices in the U.S. Church’s leadership. The outspokenness of Cardinals Robert McElroy, Blase Cupich, and Joseph Tobin on immigration, the Iran War, and other questions has begun to alter public perceptions of where the Church stands and what its priorities are.

During the Season of Creation, remember the living water that sustains all life

 

During the Season of Creation, remember the living water that sustains all life

Daniel P. Horan   ncr

Pope Leo connects the dots that can unite the church

 

Opinion

Pope Leo connects the dots that can unite the church

Michael Sean Winters  ncr

Arts & Culture, Catholic Book Club

Wendell Berry: the cranky farmer, poet and essayist you just can’t ignore

by James T. Keane December 7, 2021

Wendell Berry reads one of his poems from at the 2014 Festival of Faiths. (Wikimedia/Creative Commons)

A writing project for America’s Advent reflection series last week gave me occasion to revisit a favorite poem (“IX”) by an author who knows more than most about seasons, both liturgical and agricultural: Wendell Berry. Now 87 years old, this man of many labels (Is he a farmer? A novelist? An environmental activist? An essayist? A poet? A cultural critic? A cranky old professor? A Christian prophet?) has been a voice of practical reason and concise cultural commentary in his more than 80 books published over six decades.

25 years after 9/11, peace still eludes us

 

Opinion

25 years after 9/11, peace still eludes us

John Stowe, Charlene Howard   ncr

What synodality means for religious life and the Catholic Church

 

eptember 2, 2026

What synodality means for religious life and the Catholic Church

Sr. Joyce Meyer   ncr