Feast date: Nov 10

Nov. 10 is the Roman Catholic Church’s liturgical memorial of the fifth-century Pope Saint Leo I, known as “St. Leo the Great,” whose involvement in the fourth ecumenical council helped prevent the spread of error on Christ's divine and human natures.

St. Leo intervened for the safety of the Church in the West as well, persuading Attila the Hun to turn back from Rome.

Eastern Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians also maintain a devotion to the memory of Pope St. Leo the Great. Churches of the Byzantine tradition celebrate his feast day on Feb. 18.

“As the nickname soon attributed to him by tradition suggests,” Pope Benedict XVI said in a 2008 general audience on the saint, “he was truly one of the greatest pontiffs to have honoured the Roman See and made a very important contribution to strengthening its authority and prestige.”

Leo’s origins are obscure and his date of birth unknown. His ancestors are said to have come from Tuscany, though the future pope may have been born in that region or in Rome itself. He became a deacon in Rome in approximately 430, during the pontificate of Pope Celestine I.

During this time, central authority was beginning to decline in the Western portion of the Roman Empire. At some point between 432 and 440, during the reign of Pope St. Celestine’s successor Pope Sixtus III, the Roman Emperor Valentinian III commissioned Leo to travel to the region of Gaul and settle a dispute between military and civil officials.

Pope Sixtus III died in 440 and, like his predecessor Celestine, was canonized as a saint. Leo, away on his diplomatic mission at the time of the Pope’s death, was chosen to be the next Bishop of Rome. Reigning for over two decades, he sought to preserve the unity of the Church in its profession of faith, and to ensure the safety of his people against frequent barbarian invasions.

Leo used his authority, in both doctrinal and disciplinary matters, against a number of heresies troubling the Western church – including Pelagianism (involving the denial of Original Sin) and Manichaeanism (a gnostic system that saw matter as evil). In this same period, many Eastern Christians had begun arguing about the relationship between Jesus’ humanity and divinity.

As early as 445, Leo had intervened in this dispute in the East, which threatened to split the churches of Alexandria and Constantinople. Its eventual resolution was, in fact, rejected in some quarters – leading to the present-day split between Eastern Orthodoxy and the so-called “non-Chalcedonian churches” which accept only three ecumenical councils.

As the fifth-century Christological controversy continued, the Pope urged the gathering of an ecumenical council to resolve the matter. At the Council of Chalcedon in 451, the Pope’s teaching was received as authoritative by the Eastern bishops, who proclaimed: “Peter has spoken through the mouth of Leo.”

Leo’s teaching confirmed that Christ’s eternal divine personhood and nature did not absorb or negate the human nature that he assumed in time through the Incarnation. Instead, “the proper character of both natures was maintained and came together in a single person.”

“So without leaving his Father's glory behind, the Son of God comes down from his heavenly throne and enters the depths of our world,” the Pope taught. “Whilst remaining pre-existent, he begins to exist in time. The Lord of the universe veiled his measureless majesty and took on a servant's form. The God who knew no suffering did not despise becoming a suffering man, and, deathless as he is, to be subject to the laws of death.”

In 452, one year after the Council of Chalcedon, Pope Leo led a delegation which successfully negotiated with the barbarian king Attila to prevent an invasion of Rome. When the Vandal leader Genseric occupied Rome in 455, the Pope confronted him, unarmed, and obtained a guarantee of safety for many of the city’s inhabitants and the churches to which they had fled.

Pope St. Leo the Great died on Nov. 10, 461. He was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church by Pope Benedict XIV in 1754. A large collection of his writings and sermons survives, and can be read in translation today.

Mother Eliswa Vakayil (1831-1913), the first member of an indigenous Carmelite community in India, was beatified on November 8.

The beatification Mass (video) took place at the National Shrine Basilica of Our Lady of Ransom in Vallarpadam.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has published a 31-page report, “Ten Years of Pastoral Visits: Hope for Migrant Workers.”

“Amidst new legislation, increased enforcement, and the suspension of the refugee resettlement program and many parole programs, the immigration landscape has changed dramatically since our last retrospective report in 2015,” said Bishop Brendan Cahill of Victoria, Texas, chairman of the Subcommittee on Pastoral Care of Migrants, Refugees and Travelers. “The change is especially felt by USCCB, which is withdrawing from the federal refugee resettlement program after nearly 50 years of participation.”

The central Vietnames Diocese of Qui Nhơn was ravaged by Typhoon Kalmaegi.

The seminary and the bishop’s house collapsed; the cathedral, along with many other churches and houses of religious communities, suffered severe damage.

The head of the Holy See’s delegation to the Second World Summit for Social Development welcomed gains in fighting poverty since the first summit, held in 1995, but warned that the gains are tenuous.

“Significant progress has been made in eradicating poverty since the Copenhagen Summit, with one and a half billion people no longer living in extreme poverty,” said Archbishop Eugene Nugent. “However, these gains are fragile, and inequalities are deepening. Far too many people still experience poor health, inadequate shelter, and lack of opportunity, often linked to poverty.”

Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Secretary of State of His Holiness, delivered a message from Pope Leo XIV to participants in COP30, the 30th annual UN climate change conference.

“If you want to cultivate peace, care for creation,” Cardinal Parolin said. “While on the one hand, in these difficult times, the attention and concern of the international community seems to be mostly focused on conflicts among nations, on the other hand, there is also an ever growing awareness that peace is also threatened by a lack of due respect for creation, by the plundering of natural resources and by a progressive decline in the quality of life because of climate change.”

“May all the participants in this COP30 commit themselves to protecting and caring for the creation entrusted to us by God in order to build a peaceful world,” Cardinal Parolin concluded. “I assure you of the prayers of the Holy Father as you make important decisions at this COP30 for the common good and for the future of humankind.”

Separately, Cardinal Parolin said in an interview that the world is running out of time to address the climate-change crisis.

In his weekly column for the Vatican newspaper, Father Giulio Albanese, who writes on African affairs, critiqued African democracy.

In “La grammatica del potere” [The grammar of power], Father Albanese analyzed recent elections in Cameroon, Ivory Coast, and Tanzania and discussed “electoral authoritarianism,” in which “established leaders are regularly reconfirmed with overwhelming percentages, while a divided or marginalized opposition struggles to present itself as a real alternative.”

Archbishop Andrew Nkea Fuanya of Bamenda, the president of the National Episcopal Conference of Cameroon, discussed post-election protests in the central African nation, as well as the Anglophone crisis, an ongoing armed conflict.

“My call to all Cameroonians is that they should hold their peace, hold their anger, and manifest [their views] in different ways, in legal ways,” the prelate said of the election. Referring to the Anglophone crisis, he said that “a lot of calm has returned—but that doesn’t mean the crisis is over.”

At the conclusion of his Sunday Angelus address, Pope Leo XIV expressed his “closeness to the people of the Philippines who have been hit by a violent typhoon: I pray for the deceased and their families, as well as for the injured and displaced.”

Pope Leo also joined the Italian bishops “in encouraging responsible care for the land, combating food waste, and adopting sustainable agricultural practices. Let us thank God for ‘our sister Mother Earth’ and for those who cultivate and protect her!”

Finally, the Pope praised those “committed to building peace in the various regions affected by war. In these last few days, we have prayed for the dead and among these, unfortunately, are many who were killed in combat and bombings, even though they were civilians, children, elderly, or sick people. If we truly want to honor their memory, we must stop the wars and put all of our efforts into negotiations.”