Mid-City Christian: Pope Leo reminds us that the death penalty is inadmissible

Leo to undergo surgery early this week to remove a lung nodule

Leo to undergo surgery early this week to remove a lung nodule. Pope Leo XIV, who announced at Sunday’s Angelus that a small, early-stage nodule had been found in his lung, is expected to have it removed at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital in “the first days of this week,” press office director Matteo Bruni said, with about a week of recovery. Monday’s Holy See Press Office bulletin listed regular morning audiences and carried no medical update or surgery date. The Vatican has not announced changes to the Amoris closing Mass (Oct. 14) or Leo’s November trip to South America. In a YouTube short, Pedro Gabriel, a Where Peter Is writer and an oncologist, explains what a lung nodule is, what can reasonably be concluded from the announcement, and what should not be assumed without more medical information. — Vatican News · Holy See Press Office [IT] · Also: Prayers (Devin Watkins) · Crux analysis (Charles Collins) · Video: “Leo XIV Has a Lung Nodule. What Does That Mean?” (Pedro Gabriel; Oct. 11)

Pope Leo reminds us that the death penalty is inadmissible as the U.S. plans to livestream an execution

Pope Leo reminds us that the death penalty is inadmissible as the U.S. plans to livestream an execution. On Saturday, the World Day Against the Death Penalty, Pope Leo XIV posted on X: “The death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person. The common good can be safeguarded and the requirements of justice can be met without recourse to capital punishment: effective systems of detention have been developed that protect citizens while at the same time do not completely deprive those who are guilty of the possibility of redemption. #NoDeathPenalty” The post came a day after the Pentagon said it would livestream the Dec. 3 firing-squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan — what would be the first U.S. public execution since the 1930s — and after a botched execution in Tennessee. Cardinal Parolin said Friday that a Holy See statement on the plan would follow; as of Monday morning it had not been released. — @Pontifex (Oct. 10) · Vatican News · Also: Where Peter Is (The Magisterium of Pope Leo; Oct. 11) · Crux (John Hanna, Deepa Bharath, Sarah Rankin / AP)

Paul Chu and V.J. Tarantino on the banality and barbarism of a livestreamed execution

Paul Chu and V.J. Tarantino on the banality and barbarism of a livestreamed execution. In a co-written Where Peter Is essay, Chu and Tarantino argue that capital punishment presented as a cold, contractual equation — Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry calls it “a contract between the victims’ families and the state” — echoes Hannah Arendt’s banality of evil by depersonalizing everyone involved, and they cite research and victims’ relatives who found that executions bring little closure. They see something darker in Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s plan to livestream Nidal Hasan’s execution at Fort Hood, on a Thursday at 1 p.m. to mirror the 2009 attack: a spectacle of vengeance that invites Americans into complicity with state violence and, presented as Christianity, risks driving people away from the faith. — Where Peter Is (Paul Chu and V.J. Tarantino; Oct. 10)

Rodrigo Guerra on Oct. 12: rediscovering America without erasing its wounds

Rodrigo Guerra on Oct. 12: rediscovering America without erasing its wounds. In a Columbus Day column now translated by Where Peter Is, Rodrigo Guerra López, secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, asks whether America was discovered, concealed, or invented. He acknowledges that the conquest brought violence, dispossession, and grave injustice to Indigenous peoples, and cites the Vatican’s 2023 repudiation of the Doctrine of Discovery. He also points to fruitful encounters, mestizaje, and defenders of Indigenous peoples, and argues that authentic reconciliation requires truth, memory, and reparation. — Where Peter Is (Rodrigo Guerra; Oct. 12) · Original Spanish: El Heraldo de México · Background: 2023 Vatican statement on the Doctrine of Discovery

Leo thanks Cardinal Re as he steps down as dean of the College of Cardinals

[IT] Leo thanks Cardinal Re as he steps down as dean of the College of Cardinals. In a letter dated Oct. 11 and released Monday, Leo thanked Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, now dean emeritus, for more than six years as dean, calling his service “an edifying witness of love for the Church and the Pope.” Leo recalled Re’s Curia career under St. John Paul II — assessor, secretary of the Congregation for Bishops, substitute of the Secretariat of State, and then prefect for bishops — and his presiding role at Pope Francis’s funeral. The letter follows the election of Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle as dean last week. — Holy See Press Office (full text, Italian; our translation)

Chicago dedicates the first U.S. archdiocesan suicide memorial

Chicago dedicates the first U.S. archdiocesan suicide memorial. The Archdiocese of Chicago’s “At Peace” memorial at Queen of Heaven Cemetery in Hillside, Ill., honors lives lost to suicide and their families and is dedicated to Fr. Charles Rubey, who founded Catholic Charities’ LOSS program in 1979. Rubey recalls priests once telling grieving relatives their loved ones were in hell; the memorial, he says, marks “a complete turnaround.” — National Catholic Reporter (AP) · America

El Salvador’s bishops ask Leo to declare St. Óscar Romero a Doctor of the Church

[ES] El Salvador’s bishops ask Leo to declare St. Óscar Romero a Doctor of the Church. During their September ad limina visit, the Salvadoran bishops also invited the pope to pray at Romero’s tomb. Archbishop José Luis Escobar Alas said Leo received both requests with “a very positive and welcoming attitude” but noted that they need consultation and discernment; the bishops gave him a first-class relic, and Escobar said Leo already carries a holy card and third-class relic of Romero for daily prayer. — Religión Digital (Oct. 6)

Pope and Holy See

[IT] Amoris Laetitia meeting: briefing today on families in difficulty. After a free Sunday, sessions resume Monday on accompanying families in difficulty (Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David; Prof. Julie Hanlon Rubio). The 1:30 p.m. Rome briefing (7:30 a.m. ET, streamed on Vatican News’s YouTube channel) features Fr. Giacomo Costa, SJ, Cardinal Gérald Lacroix, Bishop Josef Nuzík, Sr. Ester Lucas José Maria, Prof. Claudia Leal Luna, and families from Gabon and Lebanon; the meeting runs through Oct. 14. — Holy See Press Office · Earlier: America on migration in the first days
[IT] Monday’s audiences include Archbishop Broglio and Caritas Internationalis. Leo received Archbishop Timothy Broglio of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services; Cardinal Tarcisio Isao Kikuchi, SVD, president of Caritas Internationalis, with Secretary General Alistair Dutton; Bishop Carlos Enrique Herrera Gutiérrez, OFM, president of Nicaragua’s bishops’ conference; Archbishop Jorge Eduardo Lozano of San Juan de Cuyo, Argentina; nuncios Martin Krebs (Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and Monaco) and Michael Crotty (Nigeria); and members of the Circolo San Pietro. — Holy See Press Office
[IT] Houston pastor named Maronite bishop for Mexico; new archbishop in Santo Domingo. Leo named Fr. Milad Yaghi, ML, founding pastor of Our Lady of the Cedars Parish in Houston since 1991 and private secretary to the Maronite bishop of Los Angeles since 2013, as bishop of the Maronite Eparchy of Our Lady of the Martyrs of Lebanon in Mexico. In the Dominican Republic, he accepted the resignation of Archbishop Francisco Ozoria Acosta of Santo Domingo; Coadjutor Archbishop Carlos Tomás Morel Diplán succeeds him and also becomes the country’s military ordinary. — Holy See Press Office
Bishops from violence-stricken countries stress mental health ministry. Speaking at a Rome gathering tied to Leo’s October prayer intention, bishops from conflict zones said listening and accompaniment are essential pastoral work where trauma is widespread. — Vatican News

United States

Analysis: How Pope Leo uses being an American to his advantage. In a new biography, American Pope, NPR’s Daniel Burke and Scott Detrow trace Robert Prevost from Chicago’s South Side through Peru to the papacy; speaking to NCR, they say the first American pope has turned conventional wisdom on its head — including by invoking “fake news” when weighing AI risks. — National Catholic Reporter

Indigenous Peoples’ Day

Holy See at the UN: Indigenous rights are “a matter of justice and of the common good.” Archbishop Christophe El Kassis, the Holy See’s permanent observer, told the General Assembly’s Third Committee that Indigenous peoples “form an indispensable part of the human family,” marked the 20th anniversary of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and called for “recognition of past wounds, commitment to reconciliation.” — Vatican News (Oct. 8)
Philippine bishops: the energy transition must not trample Indigenous lands. For Indigenous Peoples Sunday (Oct. 11), the bishops’ Indigenous Peoples commission warned that demand for critical minerals “must not become another justification for displacement” and called for genuine free, prior, and informed consent. — LiCAS.news (Oct. 12)

Liturgy and Church Life

Today: Our Lady of Aparecida, patroness of Brazil. Vatican News’s saints calendar for Oct. 12 leads with the feast of Our Lady of Aparecida; the page also lists St. Edistus and St. Seraphin of Montegranaro. — Vatican News
Msgr. Arthur Holquin: concomitance is a floor, not a ceiling, on the chalice. Part II of his Eucharist essays weighs new Orange and Fort Worth norms that withhold the Precious Blood at ordinary Sunday Masses, arguing from Thomas and the GIRM that Communion under both kinds is the fuller sign and that poor catechesis is not cured by a poorer sign. — Liturgy and Truth (Msgr. Arthur Holquin; Oct. 11)

Video and Podcasts

Paul Fahey (WPI co-founder): Tony Annett on socialism and Catholic social thought. New Catholic Third Space conversation (episode 49). — Catholic Third Space (Paul Fahey; Oct. 12)

Commentary

Opinion: Sam Sawyer, S.J., on livestreaming an execution and the American conscience. America’s editor argues Hegseth’s plan treats the condemned as a vehicle for displaying state violence and invites viewers to answer “Don’t care” when asked to see him as a person. — America (Sam Sawyer, S.J.)
Opinion: “Pete Hegseth would like you to watch a public execution.” An NCR guest essay condemns the livestream plan as spectacle. — National Catholic Reporter