Mid-City Christian: “Who told you it was too late?”

“Who told you it was too late?” Leo asks a million young Argentines

At a candlelight vigil with about 1 million young people at Buenos Aires’ Monumento de los Españoles, Pope Leo said, “there is a place for you in the Church, with your questions, your wounds and your story.” Echoing Pope Francis’ “Everyone, everyone, everyone!” from World Youth Day in Lisbon, he told those who feel they have strayed too far, “Whoever you are and whatever you may have done, Jesus Christ knows you, Jesus Christ loves you.” Retelling the story of the three young men in the fiery furnace, he urged them to “stand firm before the idols of our time,” naming success at any cost, money, an obsession with appearance, pornography, and addictive substances. — Full text (Holy See Press Office) · Vatican News · AP · OSV News

In Córdoba, “a home of saints,” Leo tells Argentines to go and be holy

Celebrating Mass for about 650,000 people at Córdoba’s Military Aviation School on the feast of St. Leo the Great, the pope held up Argentina’s saints, especially the “gaucho priest” St. José Gabriel Brochero and St. María Antonia de Paz y Figueroa, “Mama Antula,” both canonized by Francis. Quoting his namesake (“Christian, recognize your dignity”), he urged the faithful to be holy “at school and in the town square, in family life and with friends, in the countryside and in the city, on the farm and in the office. Go and evangelize!” NCR reports the Mass started 15 minutes late after Leo stopped to attend to someone in the section for people with disabilities. — Homily (Holy See Press Office) · America (Gerard O’Connell) · National Catholic Reporter · Vatican News

To priests and religious, Leo warns against working for God without time for him

In an address built around St. Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises, Leo told bishops, priests, religious, seminarians, and pastoral workers in Córdoba’s cathedral, “We can work hard for God, yet spend less and less time with him.” Quoting Francis’ Evangelii Gaudium that “the worst discrimination which the poor suffer is the lack of spiritual care,” he said material help must go with the proclamation of Christ. Recalling his own recent hospitalization, he said, “Our strength may run out, but God’s power never will,” and urged them to “dream of a Church that continues to make noise, just as your fellow countryman Francis asked you to.” — Vatican News · America · Holy See Press Office · [ES] Full text (EWTN News)

Leo bids Argentina farewell at a prison and Luján, then heads home to Peru

On his last day in Argentina, Leo visits the federal prison complex in Buenos Aires and celebrates Mass outside the Basilica of Our Lady of Luján, the national shrine, before an afternoon flight to Lima. AP notes that both stops have deep ties to Francis and calls the return to Peru, where Leo spent more than two decades as a missionary and bishop, the trip’s emotional highlight. He is due at Callao at 5:30 p.m. local time (5:30 p.m. ET) for a welcome at the presidential palace and an address to authorities at the Gran Teatro Nacional. — AP · Programme (Holy See Press Office) · [ES] Clarín (live) · [ES] El Peruano · Also: Where Peter Is (Claudio Iván Remeseira)

Pope and Holy See

[IT] Leo accepts Cardinal Juan José Omella’s resignation and names Girona’s Bishop Octavi Vilà Mayo, O.Cist., archbishop of Barcelona. Vilà, 64, a former abbot of the Cistercian monastery of Poblet who was ordained a priest only in 2015, has led Girona since 2024; Omella has headed Barcelona since 2015. — Holy See Press Office
[IT] Also in today’s bulletin: a new diocese in Tanzania. The pope created the Diocese of Nzega from territory of the Archdiocese of Tabora, naming Spiritan Father Joseph Mashaka Triphon as its first bishop, and named Father Maximilian Francis Buluma an auxiliary bishop of Mwanza. — Holy See Press Office
From a Córdoba balcony: “When we are united, we can achieve anything.” Greeting crowds from the archbishop’s residence after Mass, Leo gave thanks “for the gift of being united” and asked, “Where are all of the young people?” — Impromptu greeting (Holy See Press Office) · Vatican News

United States

More than 90 members of Congress ask that Leo be invited to address a joint session. In an Oct. 30 bipartisan letter led by Reps. Mike Thompson and Brian Fitzpatrick, 91 lawmakers asked House leaders to invite the U.S.-born pope in January, calling him “a unifying force”; OSV News notes both organizers may not be in the next Congress after the midterms. — OSV News via NCR (Gina Christian)
Support for the death penalty falls below a majority for the first time since 1971. A new Gallup poll finds 49% of U.S. adults in favor and 45% opposed; Catholic Mobilizing Network’s Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy called it “a clear indication that fewer and fewer people are buying the false rhetoric that the death penalty is effective or fair.” — OSV News via NCR (Kate Scanlon)
Bishops urge the Senate to extend temporary protected status for Haitians. In a Nov. 10 letter, the chairmen of the USCCB’s migration and international justice and peace committees asked senators to pass S. 4814, calling it “unacceptable and untenable” to forcibly return hundreds of thousands of Haitians amid gang violence and weekly deportation flights. — Letter (USCCB)
A Catholic immigration agenda for the new Congress. J. Kevin Appleby argues the new Democratic majorities should hold ICE oversight hearings and press church concerns such as pastoral access to detainees and family separation, alongside a long-overdue reform bill. — America (J. Kevin Appleby)
Could the midterm results shift the U.S. bishops’ priorities? John Carr says the bishops “are not chaplains for either political party” and should follow Leo’s lead. — NCR (Brian Fraga)
Catholic leaders call for “decisive action” at the UN climate conference. Archbishop Shelton Fabre, Bishop A. Elias Zaidan and CRS’s Sean Callahan urged strong commitments ahead of COP31. — OSV News (Gina Christian)

Liturgy and Church Life

Memorial of St. Martin of Tours. Known as the “Apostle of Gaul,” St. Martin began life as a soldier and became bishop of Tours; he is remembered for cutting his cloak in half to give part to a poor man suffering from the cold. In the United States, today is also Veterans Day. — Vatican News · USCCB readings

Commentary

Opinion: Synodality before the word existed, in Argentina’s pastoral roots. Claudio Iván Remeseira traces how COEPAL, the Argentine bishops’ post-Vatican II pastoral commission, helped give rise to the theology of the people that shaped Francis and foreshadowed today’s synodality. — Where Peter Is
Opinion: Let’s change our language about vocation. Sr. Christine Elisabeth Burke, an Australian sister of 64 years now in Manila, asks how religious can speak of the value of their life without implying it is holier than that of every other baptized person. — Global Sisters Report