News

First synod final reports published: on digital culture and seminary formation

by Courtney Mares, OSV News March 3, 2026

Synod participants take notes on their computers as Father Carlos María Galli, an Argentine theologian, is seen speaking on a video monitor during a working session of the assembly of the Synod of Bishops in the Vatican's Paul VI Audience Hall Oct. 13, 2023. Credit: CNS photo/Lola Gomez

ROME (OSV News) — A Synod on Synodality study group has recommended the creation of a new “Pontifical Commission for Digital Culture and New Technologies” in the first of 15 synod study group reports expected in the coming weeks.

The Vatican published the first two final reports from its Synod on Synodality study groups on March 3.

The first report contains recommendations on navigating the Church’s presence in digital spaces, including a proposal for a Vatican office or commission to monitor emerging theological, pastoral and canonical questions; prepare guidelines and training strategies for bishops, priests, religious and laypeople; and support bishops’ conferences in integrating digital mission into their pastoral plans.

 

Features

Behind the scenes of Pope Leo XIV’s election

by Gerard O’Connell February 12, 202

Pope Leo XIV, the former Cardinal Robert F. Prevost, waves to the crowds in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican after his election as pope on May 8, 2025. Credit: (CNS photo/Vatican Media)

On May 8—the second day of the conclave—at Santa Marta, the cardinals have a continental breakfast between 6:30 and 7:30 a.m. Cardinal Timothy Dolan sits at a table with his jar of peanut butter that he brought from New York, and to his surprise Cardinal Robert Prevost comes and sits next to him.

“No doubt he was attracted by the peanut butter!” Cardinal Dolan joked later, in a lecture at Fairfield University in early September. He also revealed that prior to the conclave, cardinals kept asking him, “Who is Robert Prevost?” but he confessed that at that time he didn’t really know the man. Later, however, Cardinal Dolan will tell the New York Post that as they chatted he found Cardinal Prevost to be open and engaging. “We swapped some stories about my hometown of St. Louis, where he had lived during his novitiate with the Augustinian order,” Cardinal Dolan said. “I came away impressed.”

Trump’s actions in Iran are reckless and childish.

 

The Mad King’s War

Trump’s actions in Iran are reckless and childish.

The Editors

March 3, 2026

War and Peace

Middle East

Donald Trum

Please email comments to letters@commonwealmagazine.org.

Smoke rises following an explosion in Tehran, Iran, March 2, 2026 (OSV News photo/Majid Asgaripour, WANA via Reuters).

At 3 a.m. Mar-a-Lago time on Saturday, Donald Trump released an eight-minute video on social media announcing that the United States and Israel had launched air strikes on Iran. His eyes shadowed by an oversized white USA baseball cap, he laid out, in familiar Trumpian language, his rationale for the attack. “The United States military is undertaking a massive and ongoing operation to prevent this very wicked, radical dictatorship from threatening America.” “Our objective is to protect the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime, a vicious group of very hard, terrible people.” “We sought repeatedly to make a deal. We tried. They wanted to do it. They didn’t want to do it again. They wanted to do it. They didn’t want to do it.” He briefly mentioned the risk to U.S. servicemembers, exhorted the Iranian people to “take over your government,” then presumably retired to the inner sanctum of his private golf resort satisfied he had made his case for war. By dawn, some of the first victims of the attack were known: more than one hundred young girls at a school in Iran’s Hormozgan province.

 

New German bishops’ president to present Synodal Conference to Rome

Natalie K. Watson

03 March 2026, The Tablet

‘With the Synodal Conference a format has been developed that takes the concerns of the Global Synod seriously and implements them in our culture, including the impulses for more transparency, accountability and evaluation,’ said Bishop Heiner Wilmer.

Deutsche Bischofskonferenz / Marko Orlovic

Bishop Heiner Wilmer said the German Church would not follow its own path but continue to seek unity with the Universal Church.

The German bishops’ conference approved the statutes for the Synodal Conference of bishops and lay representatives at its winter plenary last week.

The statutes, which emerged from the Synodal Way reform initiative, had been accepted by the Central Committee of Lay Catholics in November.

Lay Indianapolis group promotes Catholic support for LGBTQ+ community

Lay Indianapolis group promotes Catholic support for LGBTQ+ community

News

• ncr

  Catherine M. Odell

A Prophet’s Call for Justice

 

 

 

God’s Restorative Justice

A Prophet’s Call for Justice

Monday, March 2, 2026

READ ON CAC.ORG

 

Richard Rohr considers how God used the prophets to upend notions of retributive justice, which prevail in most cultures to this day:

Justice, most of us believe, is when we send bad guys to jail. We imagine that we can point out the few who get caught and that then we can think of ourselves as a fair society. But we don’t dare convict the whole system of massive injustice and deceit. Maybe we are refusing to carry both guilt and responsibility? Taking responsibility for the common good is the more important moral mandate. And that is exactly where the prophets began. When the common good is the focus, preaching is not about imposing guilt and shame on individuals, but about giving vision and encouragement to society.

 

Editorials

Against Unjust and Unjustified War with Iran

by The Editors March 2, 2026

People watch from a rooftop as a plume of smoke rises after a strike in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, March 1, 2026. Credit: AP Photo/Vahid Salemi

The Middle East has once again been plunged into strife and uncertainty—and the primary culprit is the American president who promised to end the U.S. habit of engaging in “forever wars”: Donald J. Trump. By joining with Israel to carry out the targeted killing of Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, Mr. Trump has ignored U.S. law to involve the country in a war solely on his own authority. He also continues to ignore the costs and risks of destabilizing the already fragile international order. As the editors said about his adventurism in Venezuela only two months ago, “Unprincipled and unpredictable military intervention will make regional conflicts more enduring and destructive.”

He broke the story of the US Catholic clergy abuse scandal. Now he reflects on struggling to keep his faith

 

He broke the story of the US Catholic clergy abuse scandal. Now he reflects on struggling to keep his faith

NEW ORLEANS (LA)
The Guardian [London, England]

March 1, 2026

By Jason Berry

Read original article

A reporter ponders on how to repair a religious structure long thought of as good but supported by an evil underside

In 1965, just shy of my junior year at the Jesuit high school of New Orleans, with good potential as an offensive end, I had an epiphany in the muddy slog of August football practice: Why are you doing something you don’t like?

Soon after, I quit, and was trailed by guilt for a dereliction of duty. Jesuit vaunted student achievements of all kinds. I played on the golf team and did some pieces for the school paper. Jesuit fostered a fraternal culture, molding friendships I carry to this day.