Posted inVatican Dispatch

‘I am returning to my homeland’: Pope Leo’s emotional Peruvian homecoming begins

by Gerard O’Connell November 11, 2026

Pope Leo XIV greets a child as he arrives at Callao Air Base in Lima, Peru, Nov. 11, 2026, during his Nov. 6-17 apostolic journey to Uruguay, Argentina and Peru. Credit: OSV News photo/Simone Risoluti, Vatican Media

“I am returning to my homeland,” Pope Leo XIV said at the Gran Teatro Nacional del Peru, in Lima, the capital city of this majority-Catholic nation of 37 million people, on the evening of Nov. 11. “I am very pleased to be back in Peru,” he continued, speaking to an audience composed of Peru’s civil and religious authorities, as well as representatives of its business and cultural communities, and the diplomatic corps.

Pope Leo and politics: Faggioli has penned the best book to date

 

Opinion

Pope Leo and politics: Faggioli has penned the best book to date

Michael Sean Winters   NCR

Though the religious left showed up in midterms, not everyone sees a new trend

 

Though the religious left showed up in midterms, not everyone sees a new trend

News

• NCR

  Brian Fraga

 

Christians should support investigating Trump’s corruption

by Connor Hartigan November 11, 2026

President Donald Trump speaks with reporters before boarding Air Force One in West Palm Beach, Fla., on Nov. 8. Credit: AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

The unexpectedly wide majorities that the Democratic Party will hold in both houses of the next Congress are amplifying calls to hold the Trump administration accountable for abuses of power and corruption, with inquiries into everything from President Donald Trump’s windfall of $1.4 billion in cryptocurrency to his son’s wedding celebration being bankrolled by a Russian oligarch to the ethically questionable conduct of Elon Musk.

 

Vatican Dispatch

Pope Leo to public officials: ‘To love a people is to desire that everyone may live with dignity’

by Gerard O’Connell November 11, 2026

Pope Leo meets Peru's President Keiko Fujimori at Palacio de Gobierno in Lima, Peru, on Nov. 11, 2026. Credit: OSV News photo/Yara Nardi, Reuters

“I am returning to my homeland,” Pope Leo XIV said at the Gran Teatro Nacional del Peru, in Lima, the capital city of this majority-Catholic nation of 37 million people, on the evening of Nov. 11. “I am very pleased to be back in Peru,” he continued, speaking to an audience composed of Peru’s civil and religious authorities, as well as representatives of its business and cultural communities, and the diplomatic corps.

US Catholics are left-curious. They should look to Dorothy Day.

 

Opinion

US Catholics are left-curious. They should look to Dorothy Day.

Ryan Byrnes   ncr

We need contemplation now more than ever

 

November 12, 2026

We need contemplation now more than ever

Daniel P. Horan  ncr

Pope Leo begins deeply personal homecoming in Peru: 'I am returning to my homeland'

 

Pope Leo begins deeply personal homecoming in Peru: 'I am returning to my homeland'

Vatican

• ncr

  Justin McLellan

Posted inCatholic Book Club

Charles Davis: Orthodoxy, anarchy and the wild world of Catholicism after Vatican II

by James T. Keane November 10, 2026

Charles Davis in an undated photo. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Amid the ferment and tumult in the Catholic Church in the years following the Second Vatican Council, a number of the council’s theological consultants (periti) became figures of note in their own right, at least among Catholics with a close or vested interest in the council and its implementation. Readers of America are likely to be familiar with many of their names: Murray, Rahner, Ratzinger, de Lubac, Congar, Häring, Baum, Küng. There was a time in the late ’60s when any of them could easily pack a lecture hall at a Catholic university in the United States. 

Posted inNews

Pope Leo tells Argentine youth: Stand firm, become saints, ‘go and proclaim’

by Ines San Martin – OSV News November 10, 2026

Attendee hold candles during a youth vigil with Pope Leo XIV at Monumento de los Españoles in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Nov. 10, 2026. Credit: OSV News photo/Yara Nardi, Reuters

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (OSV News) — Nearly four decades after young Argentines filled the streets of Buenos Aires for a historic World Youth Day with St. John Paul II, over 1 million gathered in the same city on Nov. 10 for an outdoor prayer vigil with Pope Leo XIV.

The atmosphere recalled that 1987 gathering: a celebration of faith drawing young people who came with Catholic movements, parishes and families, while others arrived alone. Some carried flags or wore matching shirts identifying their communities; others brought little more than backpacks, water and the determination to secure a place near the evening’s centerpiece, the Monumento de los Españoles.

DC bishop says 'collective action' trounces big money and other midterm takeaways

 

Opinion

DC bishop says 'collective action' trounces big money and other midterm takeaways

Michael J. O'Loughlin  ncr

Pope Leo urges Argentina to protect the vulnerable from Milei’s austerity measures

 Pope Leo urges Argentina to protect the vulnerable from Milei’s austerity measures

By ISABEL DEBRE, NICOLE WINFIELD, ALMUDENA CALATRAVA and DEBORA REY The Associated Press,Updated November 9, 2026, 6:44 p.M

BOSTON GLOBE

About 2.5 million of the Catholic faithful attended a Mass celebrated by Pope Leo XIV at the Monument of the Spaniards in the Palermo neighborhood of Buenos Aires.TOMAS CUESTA/AFP via Getty Images

BUENOS AIRES — Pope Leo XIV delivered a sweeping tribute to the dignity of workers before Argentina’s labor and business leaders Monday in what critics of Argentine President Javier Milei took as a rebuke to his libertarian agenda, capping a day that began at a disability home struggling under his government’s spending cuts.

The two politically charged stops bookended Leo’s first Mass in Argentina, which the Vatican said drew an estimated 2.5 million people — the largest crowd of his papacy.

 

Short Take

A president who can’t forgive

Trump would rather be himself than go to heaven

by Zac Davis November 9, 2026

Credit: AP Photo/Alex Brandon Illustration: America Media

Let’s call it “The Narcissist’s Wager.”

Ross Douthat, a former opinion columnist for The New York Times (and occasional guest on the America Media podcast network), is now a correspondent for “60 Minutes,” and he scored an interview with President Donald Trump days after a midterm election in which his party and brand of politics suffered a stinging defeat. Mr. Douthat and Mr. Trump spent most of the interview going over many of the issues that could have prompted the election results—the Iran war, mass deportations, the economy—but the end of the conversation went to a place where maybe only Mr. Douthat could have taken it. He set up Mr. Trump with a hypothetical wager. 

Ohio’s Republican electoral slate showcased MAGA at its worst.

 

Sycophants, Snakes, and Creeps

Ohio’s Republican electoral slate showcased MAGA at its worst.

Max Foley-Keene

November 9, 2026

Election 2026

Politics

Donald Trump

Please email comments to letters@commonwealmagazine.org.

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally in Youngstown, Ohio, October 12, 2026 (OSV News photo/Kevin Lamarque, Reuters).

Midterm elections are rarely favorable to the sitting president’s party, but the GOP didn’t have to lose this badly. Trump and “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth didn’t have to start the war in Iran—the purpose of which they never quite bothered to explain—by bombing a girls’ school. Trump and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick didn’t have to levy a haphazard array of tariffs that seemed almost consciously designed to punish states with competitive Senate elections. Trump didn’t have to sic men like former border-patrol commander and SS cosplayer Gregory Bovino on Midwestern cities.

4 of Trump's mistakes that made him GOP's worst enemy in the midterms

 

• 

  Matthew N. Green

4 of Trump's mistakes that made him GOP's worst enemy in the midterms

Guest Voices  NCR

Catholic theologians urge US bishops to speak against Iran war ahead of assembly

 

Catholic theologians urge US bishops to speak against Iran war ahead of assembly

News

• NCR

  Camillo Barone

A Generous Life and Death

 

 

 

Ripening: Aging with Grace

A Generous Life and Death 

Friday, November 6, 2026

READ ON CAC.ORG

 

 

Drawing on the wisdom of Henri Nouwen, Father Ron Rolheiser explores the opportunity to give one’s life, and even one’s death, away for the sake of others:  

In one of his last books, Our Greatest Gift: A Meditation on Dying and Caring, Henri Nouwen says that at a certain point in our lives, the question is no longer “What can I still do so that my life makes a contribution?” Rather, it becomes “How can I live now so that my death will be an optimal blessing to my family, the church, and the world?” and the central question should not be “How much time still remains?” but rather “How can I prepare now so that my dying will be a new way for me to leave a warm, nurturing, and blessing spirit behind for those who have loved me and whom I have loved?” [1] 

Posted inVatican Dispatch

Pope Leo calls for universal health care ‘in every society’ in first address in Uruguay

by Gerard O’Connell November 6, 2026

Pope Leo XIV speaks during a welcome ceremony with Uruguay's President Yamandu Orsi at Independence Square in Montevideo, Uruguay, Nov. 6, 2026. Credit: OSV News photo/Martin Varela Umpierrez, Reuters

Soon after arriving in Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, on the afternoon of Nov. 6, Pope Leo XIV issued a clarion call for universal health care not only in this small Latin American republic but also “in every society.”

From a platform erected in Independence Square, the city’s main square, the pope addressed an audience that included Uruguay’s civil and religious authorities, members of the business world, representatives of its civil society and the diplomatic corps.

Recalling his own recent cancer diagnosis and hospitalization in Rome that put his visit at risk (though on the plane he said he never doubted that the trip would go ahead), Leo drew attention to the fact that “sickness, disability, physical pain, loss of autonomy, poverty, unemployment or social exclusion can make it especially necessary that others offer help.”

Posted inVatican Dispatch

Pope Leo meets with President Milei, urges dialogue, on his first day in Argentina

by Gerard O’Connell November 8, 2026

Pope Leo XIV speaks with Argentine President Javier Milei as the pontiff addresses civil authorities and diplomats at Palacio Libertad, Centro Cultural Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Nov. 8, 2026, during his Nov. 6-17 apostolic journey to Argentina, Peru and Uruguay. Credit: OSV News photo/Yara Nardi, Reuters

Pope Leo got off to a great start on his arrival in Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, on Sunday afternoon, Nov. 8. Tens of thousands of Argentinians turned out to welcome and cheer him, but the high point of the welcome came when he delivered a powerful speech at the Palacio di Libertad, in which he addressed head on critical socio-economic and political issues in this highly polarized majority Catholic country of 46 million people.

Does the election of Abdul El-Sayed mark a break with the politics of distraction?

‘None of This Matters’

Does the election of Abdul El-Sayed mark a break with the politics of distraction?

Alexander Stern

November 7, 2026

Politics

Election 2026

Donald Trump

Please email comments to letters@commonwealmagazine.org.

Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed at an election-night rally in Detroit, November 4, 2026 (OSV News photo/Brian Snyder, Reuters)

When someone does something inconceivably wrong and destructive—like, say, leading Theranos or endorsing Republican Mike Rogers for Senate in Michigan—it’s hard not to resort to armchair psychology. In Nathan Fielder’s new documentary sensation You Can See Everything, there is a suggestion that because Elizabeth Holmes, founder and CEO of Theranos, seems not to understand Abbot and Costello’s “Who’s on First?” routine, she might not really understand how badly she was lying for years about her fraudulent company (it’s as much of a stretch as it sounds). Similarly, when Haley Stevens abruptly switched her endorsement from now senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed to Rogers, bafflement led to a lot of breathless speculation. Was she in thrall to her fiancé? Did El-Sayed hurt her feelings by disinviting her from a campaign event? Did Jimmy Fallon cause offense with a sketch about her and her awkward fiancé’s appearance on TMZ? Does she really believe El-Sayed is an antisemite?