News & Commentary

Where Christians are "mocked, opposed, despised or at best tolerated and pitied" is where the Catholic Church's "missionary outreach is most desperately needed," Pope Leo XIV said in his first homily as leader of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics.

World leaders warmly congratulated Pope Leo XIV on his election and exhorted him to work toward peace in an increasingly conflictive word.

Cardinal Robert F. Prevost, the Chicago-born prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops under Pope Francis, was elected the 267th pope May 8 and took the name Pope Leo XIV.

The 133 cardinals who entered the conclave failed to reach a two-thirds supermajority of at least 89 votes to elect a new pope during their morning session May 8.

As expected, the 133 cardinals who entered the Sistine Chapel May 7 failed to elect the next pope on their first ballot.

At Mass before the conclave that will elect the next pope, the dean of the College of Cardinals urged his brothers to choose the shepherd the church and all of humanity need "at this difficult and complex and tormented" turning ...