Latest news with #Vatican
CBS News
2 hours ago
- Sport
- CBS News
Pope Leo XIV graciously accepts, but doesn't wear, Philadelphia Eagles hat as Philly archbishop visits Vatican
Pope Leo XIV graciously accepted a gifted Philadelphia Eagles hat as a delegation from the City of Brotherly Love met him at the Vatican on Wednesday morning. His Holiness, who reps Chicago, hallowed be the White Sox, is seen smiling and shaking hands with Philly Archbishop Nelson Pérez and Bishop John McIntyre following his weekly audience in St. Peter's Square. A livestream from the Vatican shows Pope Leo accepting the hat and shaking hands with Pérez before handing the cap off to someone else. "I was blessed with the opportunity to greet him and present him with the Philadelphia Eagles Super Bowl cap (Go Birds!!!)," Pérez said in a post on Facebook, including an eagle emoji. "This was a profoundly joyful encounter with the Holy Father along with thousands of Pilgrims from all over the world."' Pérez and McIntyre are visiting the Vatican with several young people and the church's Office for Ministry with Young Adults as the church observes the 2025 Jubilee of Young People. The group departed Philly for Rome on July 26. The first American Pope, Leo XIV — born in Chicago as Robert Prevost — does have some ties to the Philly area. He attended Villanova University as an undergraduate, earning a degree in mathematics in 1977. One summer, he worked on the grounds crew at St. Denis Parish in Havertown, Pennsylvania. And a friend of his previously told CBS News Philadelphia that this is a pope who has been to Wawa. "He was very happy when the Eagles won the Super Bowl. He rejoiced with those of us from Philly," Augustinian Father Joe Farrell said. Farrell said he did not hear the Holy Father say "Go Birds" at any point during the Super Bowl. However, it's clear Pope Leo reps the Windy City first and foremost. Minutes after the Sistine Chapel's chimney produced white smoke and he emerged in St. Peter's Square, savvy social media users tracked down images of Pope Leo attending Game 1 of the 2005 World Series between the Chicago White Sox and Houston Astros. The White Sox have since committed to installing a commemorative artwork in the seat where the future pope watched the Sox win. Then in June, a couple of Red Sox fans from Massachusetts gave Pope Leo a White Sox hat that he broke Vatican protocol to put on. While he handed the Eagles cap off, Pope Leo put a White Sox cap on. We know who his favorite is.
The Independent
a day ago
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Pope Leo XIV gets rock star's welcome at Catholic influencer festival
Pope Leo XIV on Tuesday received a rock star's welcome at the Vatican's festival of Catholic influencers — priests, nuns and ordinary faithful who use their social media presence to preach and teach the faith — as he urged them to ensure that human relations don't suffer with the spread of digital ecosystems and artificial intelligence. History's first American pope was mobbed by hundreds of influencers, their cellphones hoisted high to stream the encounter, when he arrived in St. Peter's Basilica after a special Mass. The pilgrims have descended on Rome for a special Holy Year celebration of so-called 'digital missionaries,' part of the Vatican's weeklong Jubilee for young people that culminates this weekend with a vigil and Mass in a vast field on Rome's outskirts. Leo thanked the young people for using their digital platforms to spread the faith, and he gamely posed for selfies. But he warned them about neglecting human relationships in their pursuit of clicks and followers, and cautioned them to not fall prey to fake news and the 'frivolity' of online encounters. 'It is not simply a matter of generating content, but of creating an encounter between hearts,' Leo said in a speech that showed his ease switching from Italian to Spanish to English. 'Be agents of communion, capable of breaking down the logic of division and polarization, of individualism and egocentrism.' 'It is up to us – to each one of you – to ensure that this culture remains human,' he said. 'Our mission – your mission – is to nurture a culture of Christian humanism, and to do so together' in what he called the only networks that really matter: of friendship, love and the 'network of God.' Warnings against going off-message For the past two days, the Vatican's message to the young influencers has been one of thanks for their social media evangelizing, but also a warning to not allow their posting to go off-message or to neglect the human dimension of all encounters. For Leo, the issue is particularly heartfelt since he has said that addressing the threat to humanity posed by AI will be a priority of his pontificate. The Rev. David McCallum, an American Jesuit who heads a leadership development program and presented Monday, held periodic breaks with instructions for those in the audience to actually speak with the person next to them, for up to 10 minutes at a time. Cardinal Antonio Tagle, the head of the Vatican's evangelization office, urged the influencers to avoid anything that smacks of false advertising, coercion or brainwashing in their posting, or to use their platform to make money. He noted that he himself had been victim of a fake video advertising arthritis medicine. 'Brothers and sisters, be discerning,' Tagle told the influencers in his homily at Tuesday's Mass. A mini World Youth Day in Rome Tuesday began with groups of influencers and young pilgrims passing through the basilica's Holy Door, a rite of passage for the estimated 32 million people participating in the Vatican's 2025 Holy Year celebrations. This week, downtown Rome swarmed with energetic masses of teenage Catholic scouts, church and Catholic school groups. It all had the vibe of a scaled-down World Youth Day, the once-every-three-year Catholic Woodstock festival that was inaugurated by St. John Paul II. The most recent one in Lisbon, Portugal went viral thanks to the Rev. Guilherme Peixoto, a village priest in northern Portugal who also happens to be a DJ. He's in Rome this week, though it's not clear if he will reprise his now-famous set that woke the young people up before Pope Francis' final Mass in Lisbon. In it, he spliced into the set both St. John Paul II's exhortation to young people to 'be not afraid' and Francis' appeal in Lisbon that the church has room for everyone, 'todos, todos, todos.' ___ Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP's collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
Washington Post
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
Pope Leo XIV gets rock star's welcome at Catholic influencer festival
VATICAN CITY — Pope Leo XIV on Tuesday received a rock star's welcome at the Vatican's festival of Catholic influencers — priests, nuns and ordinary faithful who use their social media presence to preach and teach the faith — as he urged them to ensure that human relations don't suffer with the spread of digital ecosystems and artificial intelligence .
Al Arabiya
a day ago
- Al Arabiya
Pope warns against undermining human ‘dignity' in AI, social media era
Pope Leo XVI on Tuesday called on the world to protect human 'dignity' online as it faces the 'challenge' of AI, at the Vatican's first mass for Catholic influencers. He was speaking as thousands of young Catholics are in Rome this week for the Vatican's Jubilee of Youth -- an event that takes place every 25 years -- and as the Catholic Church tries to promote its message online amid a fall in church attendance. 'Nothing that comes from man and his creativity should be used to undermine the dignity of others,' Leo told young Catholic social media figures at a mass in St Peter's Basilica. He called on the world to protect 'our ability to listen and speak' in the 'new era' of artificial intelligence. The Vatican is holding a two-day event bringing together what it calls 'digital missionaries and Catholic influencers' from around the world in a bid to promote its presence online. It is the first time the centuries-old institution holds such an event. He also called on Catholic social media influencers to convince others to create content that will 'entail seeking out those who suffer and need to know the Lord.' Since taking over the papacy in May, the pope -- an American mathematics graduate -- has repeatedly warned about the dangers of AI for young people.
New York Times
a day ago
- Politics
- New York Times
The Book That Can Inspire Both a Pope and a Politician
Bless me, Reader, for I have sinned. When Vice President JD Vance met Pope Leo XIV in May, he gave the pope a copy of St. Augustine's book 'City of God,' and I confess — I thought he was trolling him. In an interview a few months earlier, Vance had invoked the Catholic theological concept of ordo amoris — the ranking of our loves — to defend a worldview that prioritizes commitments to family and nation over more distant entities, like migrants and people in other countries. This position, while consistent with the Trump administration's approach to foreign aid, immigration and border security, earned the highest-ranking Catholic politician in America an admonishing response from Pope Francis and an indirect rebuke from Cardinal Robert Prevost, the future first American pope. Taking to X, Prevost shared an article headlined 'JD Vance is wrong; Jesus doesn't ask us to rank our love for others.' Ordo amoris first appeared explicitly in 'City of God' — as the pope would have certainly known. You can see why I thought there was something a little barbed in the vice president's gift choice. But this fifth-century text, written to address criticisms that Christianity had brought disaster upon Rome, meant much more to Vance than a chance to stick it to the pope; the vice president has credited it with significantly informing his values, calling Augustine's analysis of elite Roman decadence 'the best criticism of our modern age I'd ever read.' Leo is most likely the last person who would have needed the introduction. A member of a religious order inspired by Augustine, the pope has drawn on 'City of God' repeatedly, including in a recent Vatican document on the poor. 'The city of God,' Leo writes, 'impels us to improve the cities of men and women. Our own cities must begin to resemble his.' In other words, the two most prominent American Catholics have each been profoundly influenced by a 1,600-year-old book about why the Roman Empire was falling apart. What makes it so convincing, and why are powerful people still turning to it for guidance and insight? Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
