What the Pope Said This Week

Jason Scott’s weekly review of Pope Leo XIV’s audiences – 

 Sunday, 24 May: Pentecost Mass — Peace, Mission and Truth
 
 Pope  Leo XIV celebrated Pentecost Mass in St Peter’s Basilica on Sunday morning, anchoring his homily in the Gospel scene of Christ’s appearance  to the disciples in the locked Upper Room. The disciples had shut  themselves in for fear, but the Risen Lord passed through their closed  doors, showed them his wounds, and breathed the Holy Spirit upon them.  Leo drew out what he called the three aspects of that gift: peace,  mission, and truth.
 
 On peace, the Pope reflected on the Upper  Room itself — the very space marked by the fear and betrayal of Holy  Week — becoming, through Christ’s gift of the Spirit, what he called  “the womb of the Resurrection.” The Spirit does not erase the wounds of  the past but transfigures them. On mission, he invoked Saint Paul’s  words that “to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the  common good,” and drew from this the Church’s calling as a body that  lives in God and serves the world. On truth, he invited the faithful to  allow the Spirit to lead them to the full truth of Christ — not as a  possession but as a living encounter.
 
     “Thanks to the Spirit, we can bring true peace to all, the Truth that saves — the same Christ our Lord.”
 
 The  Pope closed the homily with an appeal for peace, praying that the Holy  Spirit would save humanity “from the evil of war” and renew the Church  in its mission to transform, in his words, confusion into communion.
 
 
 Sunday, 24 May: Regina Caeli — The Spirit Opens Three Doors
 
 Following  Mass, Pope Leo XIV led the Regina Caeli from St Peter’s Square — the  final such address of the Easter season, since the Regina Caeli replaces  the Angelus only during Eastertide. His reflection continued the theme  of Pentecost, asking: “What doors does the Spirit open?” He identified  three.
 
 The first is the door of personal encounter with God: the  Spirit transforms faith from the mere observance of rules into a lived  relationship with Christ. The second is the door of the Church: without  the fire of the Spirit, Leo said, the Church remains “a prisoner of  fear, timid in the face of the world” — but the Spirit opens her to  welcome all, including those who have distanced themselves from hope.  The third is the door of the human heart: the Spirit overcomes the  selfishness, mistrust, and prejudice that keep people from recognising  one another as brothers and sisters.
 
     “We need to rediscover  God as the Father who loves us, so that we can form a Church where  everyone feels at home, and build a fraternal world where peace reigns  among all peoples.”
 
 After the prayer, Pope Leo entrusted the  Christians of China to the Virgin Mary, praying that they might be  witnesses of “hope and peace.” He also appealed for peace in regions of  ongoing conflict.
 
 
 Monday, 25 May: Encyclical Published — Magnifica Humanitas
 
 Pope  Leo XIV published his first encyclical letter on Monday, Magnifica  Humanitas (“Magnificent Humanity”), on the safeguarding of the human  person in the age of artificial intelligence. The document was signed on  15 May — the 135th anniversary of Rerum Novarum — and presented at a  Vatican event on Monday at which the Pope spoke alongside Christopher  Olah, co-founder of Anthropic, the AI safety company.
 
 At  approximately 42,000 words across five chapters, it is the most  substantial papal document of Leo’s pontificate to date and the first  encyclical to deal directly with artificial intelligence. It situates  the AI question within the tradition of Catholic Social Teaching running  from Leo XIII through to the present, frames the challenge through the  biblical images of the Tower of Babel and the rebuilding of Jerusalem  under Nehemiah, and addresses specific questions including the  governance of AI, the dignity of work in a period of technological  disruption, the protection of children from digital platforms engineered  to exploit their attention, the threat of transhumanism, and the use of  autonomous weapons in warfare.
 
     “The primary choice is not  between a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to technology, but rather between constructing  Babel or rebuilding Jerusalem; between a power that claims to dominate  the heavens and a people who work together in the presence of God to  rebuild the walls of fraternal coexistence.”
 
 The full text is  available at vatican.va in eight languages. A fuller analysis of the  encyclical appears separately in this publication.
 
 
 Wednesday, 27 May: General Audience — Liturgy: Tradition and Development
 
 At  the Wednesday General Audience in St Peter’s Square, Pope Leo XIV  continued his catechesis series on the documents of the Second Vatican  Council, delivering the second of his reflections on Sacrosanctum  Concilium, the 1963 Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy. Where last  week’s audience introduced the document, this week’s focused  specifically on the relationship between tradition and development in  liturgical reform.
 
 The Pope opened by quoting Venerable Pius  XII’s encyclical Mediator Dei, which described the Church as “a living  organism” that “grows, matures, develops, adapts and accommodates  herself to temporal needs and circumstances, provided only that the  integrity of her doctrine be safeguarded.” This, Leo argued, is the  frame through which Sacrosanctum Concilium should be read — not as  rupture but as the latest expression of a continuous, living tradition.  Tradition and progress are not opposites; a living river carries both  continuity and movement.
 
 He was also notably direct in addressing  priests. While the Council’s liturgical reform permitted substantial  development, Leo XIV was clear that the norms of the reformed liturgy  are not optional:
 
     “I encourage all priests to respect the  texts and norms of the liturgy with openness, humility, trust in God’s  greatness and with sincere fidelity to ecclesial communion.”
 
 He  noted that certain elements of the liturgy can never change because they  are divinely instituted, while others can and do develop in response to  the needs of each era. Legitimate liturgical development does not mean  private alteration. Priests who modify the Mass “on their own  initiative,” he said, risk confusing the faithful and undermining the  ecclesial unity that the liturgy exists to express and foster.
 
 Take-Away Points
 
 •  “The womb of the Resurrection” — the Upper Room, marked by fear and  betrayal, became through the Spirit the birthplace of the Church. Fear  does not disqualify a community from the Spirit’s action.
 • “Three  doors” — the Spirit opens the door of personal encounter with God, the  door of an outward-facing Church, and the door of the human heart. All  three remain closed without him.
 • “Constructing Babel or rebuilding  Jerusalem” — the central choice of the encyclical. The question is not  whether to use technology but whether it is oriented toward communion or  self-assertion.
 • “It is difficult for parents by themselves” — the  encyclical names the structural asymmetry between parents and the major  digital platforms. Protection of children from digital harms requires a  legislative response, not only parental discipline.
 • “Tradition is a  living reality” — liturgical development is not rupture but organic  growth. A river carries continuity and movement at the same time.
 •  “Respect the texts and norms of the liturgy” — Leo XIV’s direct message  to priests: fidelity to the reformed rite is not restriction but  communion. Individual initiative at the altar fragments rather than  builds.
 
 Sources
 
 2026-05-24 – https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/homilies/2026/documents/20260524-pentecoste.html
 2026-05-24 – https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/angelus/2026/documents/20260524-regina-caeli.html
 2026-05-25 – https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/encyclicals/documents/20260515-magnifica-humanitas.html
 2026-05-27 – https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/audiences/2026/documents/20260527-udienza-generale.html