Christopher Hale

NEW: The Catholic bishop whose diocese includes Mar-a-Lago said on Monday that the church “does not endorse or support any political candidate or political party,” four days after a dozen bishops laid hands on President Trump in the Oval Office.

NEW: Bishop William Joensen of Des Moines said the White House used a private prayer with President Trump “for partisan political purposes.” Milwaukee Archbishop Jeffrey Grob apologized Sunday. Pressure is building on the remaining 10 bishops to walk back their participation.

NEW: Scripture tells us, “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ but hates his brother, he is a liar.” Love is a verb. Pope Leo XIV said this morning that love for God has to overflow into love for our neighbor. Nine days before the election, love asks more of us than a feeling. It demands that we act.

NEW: Archbishop Jeffrey Grob of Milwaukee apologized on Sunday for praying over President Trump in the Oval Office last week, and he accused the White House of posting video of the prayer without the bishops’ consent.

The Heritage Foundation adviser who recruited 12 bishops to pray over Trump in the Oval Office claimed a Ph.D. from an Italian university that doesn’t grant doctorates. His listed bachelor’s school is a high school. A Vatican official called the meeting an insult to Pope Leo XIV.

When 133 cardinals sealed themselves in the Sistine Chapel to elect a pope, security detected a live cell phone. One of the older cardinals found it in his pocket. On the fourth ballot, the count came to 134 votes. Spain’s Cardinal Osoro had stuck two ballots together.

In the 1970s, a young Robert Prevost asked his mother if she wanted women to be equal to men. Mildred Prevost told him no, because “we’re already better.” She was a Black Creole librarian from a New Orleans Catholic family who sang contralto in her Chicago parish choir. Her son is now the pope.

Two years before the conclave, Cardinal Robert Prevost told a Catholic university in Peru that no one can claim to be pro-life while backing the death penalty. With Pete Hegseth’s livestreamed firing squad set for Dec. 3, watch what the future pope said in Chiclayo.

In January, a senior Pentagon official summoned Pope Leo XIV’s ambassador and lectured him on American military power. Then someone in the room invoked the Avignon Papacy. Vatican officials read it as a threat. The pope has not given an inch since.

Sister Nancy Sylvester entered religious life in 1966. At a CBS News town hall in Michigan, she asked JD Vance how ICE’s conduct squares with the Gospel. The Catholic vice president answered with migrant totals and fentanyl. Her question still sits on the table.

NEW: An order of New York nuns founded in 1817 has rebuked the bishops who laid hands on President Trump. “Images carry messages,” the Sisters of Charity wrote. “Silence carries messages, too.” The nuns have a powerful ally in Pope Leo XIV, who has put women at the center of his leadership.

NEW: Melania Trump is taking credit for a temporary ceasefire in Oleshky, Ukraine, that Pope Leo XIV asked Vladimir Putin for from his hospital bed.

NEW: Denver Archbishop James Golka distanced himself on Friday from the White House video of him praying over President Trump, saying he had expected a private meeting. He stopped short of apologizing. None of the other 11 bishops has responded to requests for comment.

Just as God raised up John Paul II behind the Iron Curtain to defeat communism, God has raised up a pope from the Americas, from inside the walls of MAGA authoritarianism, to defeat it.

NEW: Just as God raised up John Paul II to face down the Kremlin, God has raised up an American pope to face MAGA authoritarianism. In Newark in 1995, with Bill Clinton at his side, John Paul told the country to remain “a haven for generation after generation of new arrivals.”

NEW: On Wednesday, JD Vance, the most prominent Catholic in American politics, defended a $4 million ad that calls a survivor of childhood sexual abuse a liar. He told Republicans to “stop whining” about it.

NEW: Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Michigan, disavowed the Muslim Brotherhood at a town hall in Caro on Saturday. Then he asked the voter who demanded it why a Muslim candidate would need to.

Trump promises to lead Christianity where it’s never been before — beyond Jesus: “He’s going to lead us to a period of time in Christianity that nobody else can do.”

NEW: In his first major public appearance since his cancer diagnosis, Pope Leo XIV said he feels “particularly close to all those who are living with illness or infirmity.” His surgeon said there were “no clinical reasons” to stop his Nov. 6–17 trip to Uruguay, Argentina, and Peru.

Pope Leo XIV’s surgeon at Gemelli Hospital: “On the second day after the operation, we turned around and found him arranging the chairs in the chapel himself. “‘We can do that,’ we told him. “‘It doesn’t matter. I can do it, so I will.’ “What can I say? He really was an absolutely ideal patient.”

At its core, MAGA is a godless movement whose agenda is an affront to the gospel of Jesus Christ. That’s why Catholics are uniting under Pope Leo XIV to defeat authoritarianism.

NEW: Pope Leo XIV left a Rome hospital on Saturday, four days after surgeons removed part of his right lung to treat cancer. A day earlier, he had called Vladimir Putin from his hospital room to ask for a ceasefire in a besieged Ukrainian town.

If you look closely, Pope Leo XIV isn’t wearing his white cassock in this hospital photo, but rather the grey shirt with a Roman collar he preferred while in Peru.

NEW: Pope Leo XIV celebrated noon Mass at Gemelli Hospital, three days after his lung cancer surgery.

NEW: Pope Leo XIV may adjust his papacy and his trip to Latin America next month, depending on how he recovers from lung cancer surgery, the Vatican’s secretary of state said Thursday.