Pope Leo XIV celebrates first Mass as leader of the Roman Catholic Church

USA Today

12-05-2025

Pope Leo XIV celebrates first Mass as leader of the Roman Catholic Church | The Excerpt
On Saturday's episode of The Excerpt podcast: Pope Leo XIV celebrated his first mass as leader of the Roman Catholic Church Friday. USA TODAY Senior Congress Reporter Riley Beggin discusses how some Republican lawmakers are at odds as they work on a bill dealing with President Donald Trump's priorities. The National Science Foundation eliminates its equity division and cancels dozens more grants. India and Pakistan step up military strikes. USA TODAY Investigative Reporter Gina Barton gives us a peak of Untested. Listen to the exclusive series here. Let us know what you think of this episode by sending an email to [e-mail].
Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.
Podcasts: True crime, in-depth interviews and more USA TODAY podcasts right here
Taylor Wilson:
Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson, and today is Saturday, May 10th, 2025. This is The Excerpt. Today, Pope Leo XIV and his first days at a new job. Plus Republicans are at odds on some aspects of a bill dealing with President Trump's priorities, and the National Science Foundation cancels more grants.
♦
Pope Leo XIV marked his first full day as leader of 1.4 billion Roman Catholics by celebrating mass in the Vatican's Sistine Chapel.
[Music]
Taylor Wilson:
Mass got underway as the first American Pope processed into the chapel and sang in Latin, along with the Vatican's Sistine Chapel choir, one of the oldest and most prestigious in the world. The first two readings were delivered in English and Spanish.
Pope Leo XIV:
As we celebrate this morning, I invite you to recognize the marvels that the Lord has done, the blessings that the Lord continues to pour out upon all of us.
Taylor Wilson:
Leo also invoked Pope Francis saying in Italian that his predecessor often taught that Catholics, "Are called to bear witness to our joyful faith in Christ the Savior" according to the Vatican News. Leo also said that missionary outreach is desperately needed. You can read more from Pope Leo XIV's first days in his new position with a link in today's show notes.
♦
Republicans are outlining their must-haves in the bill of President Donald Trump's priorities and many of them are at odds with each other. I spoke with USA TODAY senior Congress reporter, Riley Beggin for more. Hey there, Riley.
Riley Beggin:
Hey, how you doing?
Taylor Wilson:
Good. Good. Thanks for hopping on. So just starting with this, who are the main factions here among Republicans in terms of negotiating a deal, be it Trump himself or different wings on Capitol Hill?
Riley Beggin:
There are a lot of different requirements that are being floated here, but we can really break it down into three major categories. The first is what I would call the fiscal conservatives. These are the deficit hawks who are really worried about how much this package is going to cost. So they are putting pressure on Republican leadership and others in the conference to make sure that they can find enough spending cuts if they're going to extend Donald Trump's 2017 tax package, which is going to cost a lot of money for taxpayers.
The second group is a group of moderate conservatives, people who tend to come from more low-income districts or states that have major concerns about potential cuts to Medicaid. So this is in a way connected to that first group as a part of the cuts that they are seeking to achieve to make this deficit neutral. Their purview is Medicaid and that is really sort of the lion's share of funding that they have to play with to achieve these cuts. So we don't know exactly what that's going to look like, that's something that we're going to learn more about in the next few days, but there is a high likelihood that there are going to be some changes to Medicaid at the very least. And they've said if there are cuts to actual benefits, we are not voting for this.
The third group is what we call the SALT Caucus. This is a group of Republicans from Democratic states, so New York, New Jersey, California, who have this specific tax provision that they're pushing for. They're a smaller group, but they are the ones who I think are really going to go to the mat on this and we're going to sort of see how things shake out here.
Taylor Wilson:
You mentioned Medicaid. We know this is front and center and things have gotten already pretty contentious, Riley, can you just give us some of the latest, what's happened over the last few days?
Riley Beggin:
Lawmakers are meeting behind closed doors to try to figure out what they can do that is going to make significant cuts without significantly hurting the low-income people who benefit from Medicaid. What Republican leadership has said is we can achieve this by eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse. And some of the things that Republicans can collectively get behind is adding work requirements, for example, making sure that non-citizens are not on the rolls, doing regular checks to make sure that people who deserve it are the ones who are getting it. But those are all really just a drop in the bucket. The proposals that would actually make a difference would significantly impact Medicaid funding. One thing, for example, that has been floated is a change to the federal match rate between the federal government and states or putting a per capita cap for federal funding to the states. That first one, the federal match rate, the speaker has said is off the table. If that was implemented, it would likely trigger states to drop the Medicaid expansion. There are a lot of things on the table right now.
Taylor Wilson:
Riley, we wrapped this work week hearing from President Trump say that he could accept higher taxes on the rich. That would be a reversal from his previous opposition there. How did those comments land with you and what's the latest there?
Riley Beggin:
The president's comments reflect, I think, this sort of populist wing of the Republican Party. A lot of sort of the traditional Romney Republicans have really been eradicated from congressional Republicans, but I would say a lot of them really would draw the line at raising taxes. It's a pretty fundamental conservative viewpoint that raising taxes on wealthy people slows economic growth. It's going to be interesting to see what happens here. What the president's proposed is a new tax bracket for people making more than $2.5 million or couples making more than $5 million. So those are really wealthy people. There are some conservatives who have said they would support it, but leadership is against it.
Taylor Wilson:
As you write, Riley, Republican leaders say failure is not an option. What are the stakes really to get a deal done?
Riley Beggin:
Republicans have this really short window where they control the House, Senate and the White House. History tells us that they are likely to lose the House of Representatives in next November's elections. That could be wrong. They could keep the House, but they're not banking on it. They're going to assume we only have this short period of time.
On top of that, at the end of the year, the 2017 tax cuts expire. So if they don't do something this year, those taxes are going to go back up and Republicans will be hit for raising taxes essentially.
And then the third thing is the debt ceiling. Sometime this summer, potentially into the fall, we're going to hit what's called the X-date, which is when essentially we can't continue to not pay down our debt. So Congress has to raise the debt ceiling. It's something that dozens and dozens of Republicans have never voted to do, but they're agreeing to do it in this case so they don't have to negotiate with Democrats.
Taylor Wilson:
All right, outstanding breakdown as always. Riley Beggin covers Congress for USA TODAY. Thank you, Riley.
Riley Beggin:
Thank you.
♦
Taylor Wilson:
The National Science Foundation canceled 73 additional grants yesterday. The agency also announced in a staff memo obtained by USA TODAY that it is eliminating its Division of Equity for Excellence in STEM team. The memo says the agency is laying off around 70 employees and plans to eliminate around 300 additional temporary positions. Employees who have worked remotely for years will also need to begin working out of NSF's headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia by June 16th. The Division of Equity for Excellence in STEM promoted diversity, equity and inclusion in STEM by removing barriers and supporting the full participation of underrepresented groups in science and engineering fields according to a webpage removed from the NSF website yesterday. The grant cancellations mark the third wave of terminations to upend the agency in recent weeks. In total, the National Science Foundation has stopped more than 1,400 projects worth more than a billion dollars according to a public list of canceled grants maintained by researchers at science nonprofit, rOpenSci and Harvard University.
♦
Pakistan and India launched strikes and counterstrikes against each other's military installations earlier today. The moves prompted U.S. calls for the neighbors to begin talks and defuse their escalating conflict. Analysts and diplomats have long feared that conflict between the countries could escalate into the use of nuclear weapons. Latest tensions between the two countries are some of the most intense since 1999. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called Pakistan's army chief general and India's foreign minister today urging both sides to deescalate and reestablish direct communication.
♦
Untested is a new exclusive podcast from USA TODAY and Witness that takes listeners inside a detective's hunt for a sexual predator. I spoke with host, investigative reporter, Gina Barton for a peek and a warning. This show includes descriptions of sexual assault and suicide, so it may not be suitable for all listeners. Hello Gina.
Gina Barton :
Hi.
Taylor Wilson:
So just starting with this, tell us a little bit about this series. What is Untested and really what led you to this idea for a show?
Gina Barton :
The show came out of the reporting that our investigative team did about the crisis of untested rape kits and some federal grants that were being used to test those kits. And obviously any story we do, we want to be able to write about the people involved and the people impacted. And so I was going through some court cases and I found one in Lansing, Michigan that all the stars just happened to align. The trial was actually going to be happening in a couple of weeks, it involved a 10-year-old case with an untested rape kit, and then in the interim, before the kit was tested, another woman had accused this same man of rape. And so I went, I attended the trial, I interviewed the prosecutors and the detective and the victim advocate and several of the victims, and wrote a narrative story that went with our project that was published last year, and then realized that I had so much more material that I just couldn't get into that story. So we decided to make it into a podcast.
Taylor Wilson:
All right. So without maybe giving too much away, Gina, what surprised you the most in the course of your reporting here?
Gina Barton :
The thing that surprised me the most is that there was all this effort put into getting the untested rape kits finally tested sometimes after months, years, decades, and all this federal money went to pay for the testing. But then a lot of times after the kits were tested, nobody did anything. I thought the whole point of this was you're going to test the kits and then you're going to investigate the case and then you're going to put the perpetrator in prison. But in fact, in a lot of jurisdictions, they just tested the kit and forgot about it again. So that was another reason why I wanted to look at this case and make the show out of it because this was a really extraordinary detective who actually got that result and then investigated the case and things worked a little bit more how they were supposed to.
Taylor Wilson:
Well, in terms of that extraordinary detective, what do you think motivated the lead detective in this case?
Gina Barton :
I've had so many conversations with Annie Harrison, who was the lead detective in the case. I think the first thing that made her different is that she has always really felt compassion and empathy for victims of rape and sexual assault and sees her role as bringing them justice and helping bring them peace as opposed to just locking up the bad guy, although she wants to do that too.
The other thing that I found pretty unusual about Annie compared to a lot of the other police officers I've encountered in my more than 20 year career, is that she is willing to admit when she or other police officers have made mistakes or have been wrong, and she's always striving to see what can we learn from those mistakes. So she's also willing to apologize to the victims, which meant a lot to them. So she saw these untested rape kits, she realized that some of them, when they were tested, still nothing happened. And then she was willing to find the victim survivors, go to their houses, apologize to them for how they had been treated up to that point, and I find that to be really unusual.
Taylor Wilson:
Such a powerful series, Gina. What do you hope to leave listeners with after hearing it?
Gina Barton :
I hope that after listeners hear this, they will have more compassion for victims and survivors of sexual assault, and I hope that I get a lot of police officers and professionals listening who will be inspired by Annie and her methods and her willingness to learn more. I just hope that it gives people an inside look into how the police operate and how they should be operating and how they shouldn't be operating, both things, when they're investigating sexual assaults.
Taylor Wilson:
All right, just the latest great journalism from you, Gina. Gina Barton is an investigative reporter with USA TODAY. Thank you, Gina.
Gina Barton :
Thanks so much for having me.
♦
Taylor Wilson:
And coming up tomorrow, Niall Harbison is on a mission, one that started with a golden retriever that he rescued named Tina.
Niall Harbison:
I remember burying her and I remember saying, "Okay, your life is not going to be in vain. I'm going to make change that is impactful in your name."
Taylor Wilson:
My colleague Dana Taylor, spoke with Niall about his new book, Tina: The Dog Who Changed the World and his goal of fixing the global street dog problem for good. You can hear that episode right here on this feed beginning at 5:00 AM Eastern Time.
♦
And thanks for listening to The Excerpt. You can get the podcast wherever you get your audio, and if you're on a smart speaker, just ask for The Excerpt. I'm Taylor Wilson and I'll be back Monday with more of The Excerpt from USA TODAY.