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2 weeks ago | 
thebostonpilot.com | Inés San Martín |Jaymie Stuart Wolfe |Mark Valley |Michael Reardon
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ROME (OSV News) -- As the Catholic Church welcomed its 267th pope, Leo XIV -- elected May 8 -- attention quickly turned to the first moments of his pontificate. The first weeks of a papacy often give a hint as to how the entire pontificate will look. This is what the seven days of papacy tell about the first American pope and how his predecessors spent their honeymoon in the Vatican.
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2 weeks ago | 
thebostonpilot.com | Jaymie Stuart Wolfe |Mark Valley |Michael Reardon
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BRIGHTON -- Karen Drake enrolled in St. John's Seminary's Theological Institute because she wanted to "search for truth.""Search for a deeper understanding of God and to build up my faith and to be able to defend my faith," she explained. The Institute provides theological formation and pastoral training to laypeople, deacons, and religious. Despite being a lifelong Catholic, Drake said she found that the classes had a lot to teach her.
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2 weeks ago | 
thebostonpilot.com | Jaymie Stuart Wolfe |Mark Valley |Michael Reardon
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METHUEN -- On May 19, Vicar General Bishop Mark W. O'Connell did something that he hasn't done in 25 years: mow a lawn with a push mower. "I didn't have the same strength I had as a 20-year-old," he said, "but I could do it in straight lines."Bishop O'Connell wielded the mower for a special occasion: The Archdiocese of Boston's 17th annual Service Week.
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2 weeks ago | 
thebostonpilot.com | Jaymie Stuart Wolfe |Mark Valley |Michael Reardon
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MEDFORD -- Jesus peeked out from behind the closed curtains to see the hundreds of chattering students of St. Raphael School in Medford who had filled the parish hall to watch his passion. Jesus was Jeremiah Quattrini, a seventh grader at St. Raphael's. On Holy Thursday, April 17, he and his classmates performed a tableau vivant passion play for the school, continuing a tradition that has lasted over 25 years.
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1 month ago | 
thebostonpilot.com | Jaymie Stuart Wolfe |Michael Reardon
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(OSV News) -- The conclave is set to begin May 7, but the public only knows its end by iconic white smoke billowing out of the Sistine Chapel's chimney. Black smoke means the cardinals have not yet reached the two-thirds majority vote necessary to elect a new pope. The cardinals burn the ballots in a stove, adding chemicals to the fire to color the smoke.
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1 month ago | 
thebostonpilot.com | Junno Arocho Esteves |Justin Mclellan |Jaymie Stuart Wolfe |Michael Reardon
ROME (CNS) -- The casket bearing the body of Pope Francis made its final journey through the streets of Rome accompanied by applause and shouts of gratitude from thousands of mourners. After the funeral Mass April 26, pallbearers carried Pope Francis' coffin through St. Peter's Basilica, stopping briefly at the steps leading to St. Peter's tomb before placing it on a retrofitted popemobile parked outside.
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1 month ago | 
thebostonpilot.com | Carol Glatz |Jaymie Stuart Wolfe |Michael Reardon
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- When Pope Francis was elected as the first Latin American pontiff, he said his brother cardinals went out of their way to pick someone from the "ends of the earth."He spent the rest of his pontificate going back out to those peripheries, traveling to more than 65 nations, preferring those that were poor, scarred by war, marginalized and forgotten. Then the peripheries came to him on the day of his funeral in St. Peter's Square.
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1 month ago | 
thebostonpilot.com | Jaymie Stuart Wolfe |Michael Reardon
Editor's note: This is the English translation of the prepared text of the homily, delivered in Italian by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, dean of the College of Cardinals, for the funeral of Pope Francis in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican April 26, 2025. It is provided by the Holy See Press Office and lightly edited for style.
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1 month ago | 
thebostonpilot.com | Cindy Wooden |Jaymie Stuart Wolfe |Michael Reardon
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Francis was "a pope among the people, with an open heart toward everyone," said Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, dean of the College of Cardinals, as he presided over the funeral of the pope, who died April 21 at the age of 88. And the people -- an estimated 200,000 of them -- were present as 14 pallbearers carried Pope Francis' casket into St. Peter's Square and set it on a carpet in front of the altar for the funeral Mass April 26.
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1 month ago | 
thebostonpilot.com | Jaymie Stuart Wolfe |Michael Reardon
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''In the Lord's Paschal Mystery, death and life contended in a stupendous struggle, but the Lord now lives forever (cf. Easter Sequence). He fills us with the certainty that we, too, are called to share in the life that knows no end, when the clash of arms and the rumble of death will be heard no more. Let us entrust ourselves to him, for he alone can make all things new (cf. Rev.
