Bulletins, Newsletters, and Flocknotes

The Prefecture of the Papal Household announces the following:

 

8 May : Friday Morning POMPEII – Holy Mass and supplication to Our Lady, lunch

Afternoon NAPLES – Cathedral: meeting with the clergy and religious

- Piazza Plebiscito: meeting with citizenry

 

23 May : Saturday Morning ACERRA – Meeting with the faithful of the Land of Fires

 

20 June : Saturday Afternoon PAVIA

 

4 July : Saturday Morning LAMPEDUSA

 

6 August : Thursday Morning SAINT MARY OF THE ANGELS – ASSISI

- Meeting with young people gathered on the Centenary of the Transitus of Saint Francis; Holy Mass

 

22 August : Saturday Afternoon RIMINI – Meeting with participants in the 47 th Meeting for Friendship among Peoples

- Holy Mass with the faithful of the diocese.

Appointment of auxiliary bishop of Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire

The Holy Father has appointed Bishop Gaspard Béby Gnéba, until now bishop of Man, Cote d’Ivoire, as auxiliary bishop of the archdiocese of Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire, assigning him the titular see of Putia in Numidia.

This morning, the Holy Father received in audience:

- His Eminence Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith;

- Bishop Devair Araújo da Fonseca of Piracicaba, Brazil;

- Participants in the General Chapter of the Legionaries of Christ;

- Meeting with the clergy of the diocese of Rome.

This morning, in the Vatican Apostolic Palace, the Holy Father Leo XIV received in audience the participants in the General Chapter of the Legonaries of Christ.

The following is the address delivered by the Pope to those present:

 

Address of the Holy Father

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Peace be with you.

Your Eminence, Your Excellency, dear brothers,

I am pleased to receive you in the final phase of your General Chapter. As in the life of every religious institution, this is a time of grace, because it constitutes a privileged moment of community discernment and listening to the Holy Spirit, which continues to guide your history and to support the mission entrusted to your congregation, in fidelity to the charism received as a gift from God to the Church as a whole.

It is also an opportunity for you to recognize yourselves as heirs to a charism which, through different paths and historical expressions — sometimes painful and not without crises — gave rise to the Congregation of the Legionaries of Christ, united by the same spiritual roots and a common apostolic passion. This shared memory does not look only to the past, but also urges us to constant renewal in the present, faithful to the Gospel.

The charism is a gift of the Holy Spirit. Every institute and each one of its members are called to embody it, personally and in the community, in a continual process of deepening their identity that situates and defines them within the Church and society. This journey, in turn, constitutes a valuable contribution to the Church as a whole and, in a special way, to the spiritual family of Regnum Christi .

The diversity of forms, styles and accents in living out the charism received does not weaken unity, but enriches it, like the “polyhedron, which reflects the convergence of all its parts, each of which preserves its distinctiveness” (Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii gaudium , no. 236). For this reason, one must not fear plurality, but rather welcome it and discern it, and enable it to express itself so as to respond more transparently and faithfully to God’s call. Just as in a family every member has his or her own identity and mission, so too among you the plurality of gifts manifests the fruitfulness of the Spirit and strengthens the common mission.

As has been recalled, charism is a gift of the Holy Spirit; it is He who distributes his gifts (cf. 1 Cor 12:11), and he does so for the renewal and edification of the Church. As Saint Paul says, “To each is given a particular manifestation of the Spirit for the common good” ( 1 Cor 12:7). For this reason, charisms should be received with gratitude and consolation (cf. Dogmatic Constitution Lumen gentium , no. 2). Remember, therefore, that you are not masters of charisms, but their custodians and servants. You are called to give your lives so that this gift may continue to be fruitful in the Church and in the world. Therefore, this Chapter invites you to continue to ask yourselves how to live today, with creative fidelity, the charismatic intuition that gave rise to your religious family.

A General Chapter is also a moment to evaluate the progress made and to discern, with the help of the Holy Spirit, the path to be travelled. For this reason, you have considered the exercise of governance and authority in the institute as one of the central themes. Authority, in religious life, is not understood as domination, but as spiritual and fraternal service to those who share the same vocation. Its exercise must be manifested in the “‘art of accompaniment” which teaches us to remove our sandals before the sacred ground of the other (cf. Ex 3:5). The pace of this accompaniment must be steady and reassuring, reflecting our closeness and our compassionate gaze which also heals, liberates and encourages growth in the Christian life” (Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii gaudium , no. 169). Authority in religious life likewise serves to animate community life, focusing it on Christ and guiding it towards the fullness of life in Him, avoiding any form of control that does not respect the dignity and freedom of people.

In the same way, one of the fundamental tasks of religious governance is the promotion of fidelity to the charism. Therefore, it is necessary to reinforce a style of governance characterized by mutual listening, co-responsibility, transparency, fraternal closeness and community discernment. Good governance, instead of focusing everything on itself, promotes subsidiarity and the responsible participation of all the members of the community.

Consecrated life, called to be adept at communion, creates spaces where the Gospel is translated into tangible fraternity. In these days, without doubt, you have had a genuine experience of communion between brothers of diverse cultures and backgrounds, different generations, and between those who exercise responsibility for governing and those who serve daily in communities and missions.

Your mission consists of offering this visible witness of mutual listening and the common pursuit of God’s will, both for your communities and for those whom you meet on the way as you fulfil your mission.

“Missionary unity should not be understood as uniformity”. [1] It is not a matter of eliminating differences, but of having the capacity to harmonize diversity to the benefit of everyone, accepting divergences as wealth and discerning together the paths that the Lord proposes to us.

This process requires the humility to listen, the inner freedom to express oneself sincerely, and the openness to accept common discernment. It is an inherent requirement of every vocation lived in community.

The Church today is experiencing an intense call to synodality, that is, to walk, listen and discern together. The General Chapter is, by its very nature, a synodal exercise in which all are called to offer their experience and sensitivity in order to build the future of the institute together.

Dear brothers, I urge you to continue to live with an attitude of prayer, humility and inner freedom. Do not pursue particular or regional interests, nor seek mere organizational solutions, but above all the will of God for your religious family and for the mission that the Church has entrusted to you.

May this Chapter open you to a time of hope. The Lord continues to call and send, to heal and purify; therefore, your task is to discern how to respond faithfully to the present that God places in your hands.

Entrusting this new stage of your congregation to the maternal protection of Our Lady of Guadalupe, I cordially impart my Apostolic Blessing. Thank you.

___________________________

[1] Message for the 100 th World Mission Day , 8 January 2026.

The following is the Message sent by the Holy Father Leo XIV to Brazilian faithful on the occasion of the Campanha da Fraternidade (Fraternity Campaign) 2026, promoted by the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil, which this year has the theme “Fraternity and Housing” and the motto “He came to dwell among us” (cf. Jn 1:14):

 

Message of the Holy Father

Dear brothers and sisters from Brazil!

“The solemn season has arrived, which should remind us to humble our souls and chastise our bodies with prayer and fasting more earnestly and intensely than at other periods of the year” ( Sermon 210 ). Thus wrote Saint Augustine in one of his sermons on the liturgical season we are about to begin, during which we receive a special call from God to authentic conversion, redirecting our whole life to Him, as we follow, through fasting and penance, in the footsteps of Our Lord who withdrew into the desert for forty days. In this time of intense prayer, we are also invited to practise with renewed commitment the virtue of charity towards the poorest and most in need, with whom Christ himself identifies (cf. Mt 25:35-40). May the Holy Spirit, the author of our sanctification, lead us along this path.

In order to encourage the faithful during each Lenten journey, for more than sixty years the Church in Brazil has been conducting the Fraternity Campaign, a time when, as a community of faith, it directs its pastoral and charitable action towards the poor, the true recipients of our preferential love, as I made a point of recalling in the Apostolic Exhortation Dilexi te : convinced that “there is an inseparable bond between our faith and the poor” (no. 36), “we need to be increasingly committed to resolving the structural causes of poverty” (no. 94). As in 1993, this year, inspired by the motto “He came to dwell among us” (cf. Jn 1:14), the proposal is to turn our eyes to our brothers and sisters who suffer due to a lack of decent housing.

My holy predecessor, Saint John Paul II, invited us to turn our attention to “the millions of human beings lacking adequate housing or with no housing at all, in order to awaken everyone’s conscience and to find a solution to this serious problem with its negative consequences for the individual, the family and society”, adding that “the lack of housing, an extremely serious problem in itself, should be seen as a sign and summing-up of a whole series of shortcomings: economic, social, cultural or simply human in nature” ( Sollicitudo Rei Socialis , 17).

In this sense, it is my hope that reflection on the harsh reality of the lack of proper housing, which affects so many of our brothers and sisters, will lead not only to isolated actions – which are undoubtedly necessary – that come to their aid in an emergency, but also raise awareness in everyone that sharing the gifts generously granted to us by the Lord cannot be restricted to a period of the year, a campaign or a few specific actions, but must be a constant attitude that commits us to encountering Christ present in those who have nowhere to live.

I also hope, dear brothers and sisters, that the initiatives born of the Fraternity Campaign may inspire government authorities to promote public policies so that, by working together, it will be possible to offer significant improvements in the housing conditions of those most in need.

I entrust these wishes to the care of Our Lady, who found no place to give birth to the Redeemer in Bethlehem, but who has her home, as Queen and Patroness of Brazil, in the National Shrine of Aparecida. And as a pledge of abundant graces, I gladly impart my Apostolic Blessing to the sons and daughters of the beloved Brazilian nation, especially to those who strive to ensure that everyone has decent housing.

Vatican,11 February 2026, liturgical memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes.

LEO PP. XIV