The Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life began a three-day plenary assembly on February 4, only the third such assembly since the dicastery’s establishment in 2016, and the first such assembly since 2023.

In the four-minute video, filmed in San Pellegrino in Vaticano and released on February 5, Pope Leo began, “Lord Jesus, who welcomed the little ones in your arms and blessed them tenderly, today we bring before you the children living with incurable illnesses.”

The Pope concluded:

Make of us a Church that, animated by the feelings of your Heart and moved by prayer and service, knows how to uphold fragility, and in the midst of suffering, becomes a source of comfort, a seed of hope, and a proclamation of new life. Amen.

“As a priest and bishop, I have observed with increasing pastoral concern the emergence of a broad crisis concerning mental health that is negatively impacting Americans, and especially young people, in terms of their spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical wellbeing,” Bishop Burbidge wrote in “The Divine Physician and a Christian Approach to Mental Health and Wellbeing.”

The prelate also offered his reflections on the “proper place of counseling in the Catholic life—when and in what manner we should make use of it in our pursuit of that authentic happiness that is holiness.”

The Vatican announcement followed the Society’s own announcement that the Society’s bishops will consecrate new bishops on July 1.

Cardinal Fernández told The Pillar that “we have been exchanging letters in recent times. Next week I will meet with Father Pagliarani in the DDF to try and find a fruitful path of dialogue.”

The Society was founded in 1970 by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (1905-1991). Archbishop Lefebvre’s ordination of four bishops in 1988 without a pontifical mandate led to the automatic excommunications of the prelate and the four bishops. In 2009, the Congregation for Bishops issued a decree remitting the excommunications, a decision that Pope Benedict XVI explained in a subsequent letter.

The Diocese of Lafayette, Louisiana, retained Mouton to represent the notorious Gilbert Gauthe, a priest convicted in 1985 for the sexual abuse of minors. Mouton later became a leading source for journalist Jason Berry’s 1992 book, Lead Us Not into Temptation. Mouton also coauthored a 1985 report to the US bishops warning of the financially catastrophic nature of the abuse scandal.

Pope Leo XIV approved amended statutes for the John Paul II Foundation for the Sahel, founded in 1984 to provide assistance to Africa’s Sahel region.

The three include the former chief finance officer, finance manager, and accounting specialist.

Pope Leo XIV received Prime Minister Edi Rama of Albania on February 5.

Pope Leo XIV received Andrea Riccardi, the founder of Community of Sant’Egidio, on February 5.

Pope Leo XIV received a delegation of priests and monks from all six of the Oriental Orthodox Churches and encouraged them to disarm their hearts so as to foster Christian unity.