reflections, updates and homilies from Deacon Mike Talbot inspired by the following words from my ordination: Receive the Gospel of Christ whose herald you have become. Believe what you read, teach what you believe and practice what you teach...
During a papal audience at the Vatican June 24, 2026, former White Sox catcher A.J. Pierzynski presents Pope Leo XIV with “the Ball” -- from the final out of Game 1 of the 2005 World Series. (OSV News photo/Simone Risoluti, Vatican Media)
(OSV News) — About two weeks after what he calls the most surreal moment of his life, Kevin Workman remains in awe.
That’s no embellishment. After all, imagine being a humble noncelebrity living a quiet life as a devoted family man and suddenly realizing that Pope Leo XIV actually knows your name and possesses something you created just for him.
“It’s just amazing,” Workman told OSV News. “Absolutely blown away.”
Sports rosaries
Workman, a 65-year-old human resources manager who resides in New Haven, Indiana, became a Catholic in 1981. He married his wife, Julie, in 1982, and together they have raised eight children and welcomed 19 grandchildren, with No. 20 due in March.
Seven years ago, Workman began making rosaries as a hobby, giving them away at his parish, St. Peter’s, on the southeast side of Fort Wayne. He later expanded his craft by learning to make wire rosaries and eventually began selling them online, where Notre Dame fans became some of his most devoted customers.
“They’ve been sold to every state in the country,” Workman said.
Earning some spending money was never the main objective.
“I feel that the state of the world today needs many, many prayers, and the rosary is the most powerful prayer,” Workman said. “I feel it has become a mission of mine that has developed through opportunities and grace.”
A special commission
Then, on April 18, came the request of his life.
“Catholic Athletes for Christ” commissioned Workman to create a Chicago White Sox-themed rosary intended specifically for the pope. After a few arm pinches to assure himself that he wasn’t dreaming, Workman immediately and emphatically embraced the assignment.
On June 24, Workman’s meticulously completed work reached the Vatican through a visit by former Chicago White Sox catcher A.J. Pierzynski. Along with presenting Workman’s rosary, Pierzynski gifted the pope — an ardent White Sox fan — the baseball from the final out of Game 1 of the 2005 World Series.
Then known simply as Father Robert Prevost, the future Pope Leo had attended the White Sox’s 5-3 victory over the Houston Astros in person. Four days later, on Oct. 26, 2005, he celebrated his beloved White Sox’s first World Series championship since 1917.
Workman said he was “in tears” when he first learned the rosary had reached the pope.
“This is the biggest thing that’s ever happened in my little world,” Workman said.
White Sox fan and pope
After his meeting with the pope, Pierzynski spoke with The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal and recounted the experience. “I know he was at the game. It was just sitting on my wall,” said Pierzynski, a colleague of Rosenthal’s at Fox Sports and the Foul Territory Network. “I was like, ‘It’s better at the Vatican with him than sitting on my wall.’ I figured it was the perfect thing.”
Pope Leo reacted with visible excitement after receiving the baseball from Pierzynski.
“Oh my gosh,” Pierzynski said. “He was like, ‘This is unbelievable.’ He was like, ‘No way, this is the ball?’ And he literally said, ‘I was at Game 2, too. But nobody knows that. They didn’t find me.'”
Before leaving, Pierzynski reminded the pope that the White Sox have enjoyed quite a resurgence after several disappointing seasons.
“It was kind of as I was walking away, I said, ‘Hey, White Sox are in first place,'” Pierzynski said. “He just looked at me and goes, ‘Oh, I’m watching and paying attention, don’t worry.’ And he just kind of smiled at me.”
Workman hopes to receive a photo of Pope Leo receiving the rosary. If not, the unfathomable course of events will suffice.
“To think the pope is going to be using my rosary to pray,” Workman said, “just boggles my mind.”
John Knebels writes for OSV News from suburban Philadelphia.
Vatican-backed priest tours US to visit immigrant advocates, community organizers
(RNS) — 'This is completely terrible, and we cannot be silent in front of this,' the Rev. Mattia Ferrari, the coordinator of World Meeting of Popular Movements, told RNS about the killing of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo.
The Rev. Mattia Ferrari, center right, visits local farm workers and anoints the sick in California's Coachella Valley on June 21, 2026. (Photo courtesy of Catholics in Communion)
(RNS) — When the news broke that Lorenzo Salgado Araujo had been shot and killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent as he drove his construction crew to work in Houston last week, a Vatican representative was meeting with immigrant families at a Houston Catholic parish. The families were sharing about the intense levels of fear their community has been experiencing.
“This is completely terrible, and we cannot be silent in front of this,” the Rev. Mattia Ferrari, coordinator of World Meeting of Popular Movements, told RNS about the killing of Salgado Araujo.
On his multi-city tour of the U.S., Ferrari has heard from many immigrants experiencing fear, family separation and even detention. “They are suffering something that is completely unfair, completely unjust,” Ferrari said, calling Salgado Araujo’s death “the top of the sufferings.”
The World Meeting of Popular Movements was first convened at the Vatican with Pope Francis in 2014, and since then the Vatican’s Dicastery for Integral Human Development has “accompanied” the initiative, which emphasizes poor and marginalized people as “protagonists” in the fight for justice.
“We are here to serve, not to lead,” said Ferrari of the church’s role, highlighting grassroots leadership.
Last fall, Pope Leo XIV told the convening, which has historically called for land, housing and work for poor people, “The Church must be with you: a poor Church for the poor, a Church that reaches out, a Church that takes risks, a Church that is courageous, prophetic and joyful!”
Leo also emphasized that the poor are at the center of the gospel. “Therefore, marginalized communities…must be involved in a collective and united effort aimed at reversing the dehumanizing trend of social injustices and promoting integral human development,” he said.
Ferrari’s tour was planned after Ferrari expressed “curiosity” at last fall’s convening to see and hear from people on the ground who are confronting the “cost of living and immigration tension” in the U.S., said Cecilia Flores, who coordinated the tour in her volunteer role with a coalition called Catholics in Communion, which was founded late last year to respond to the “pastoral emergency” of mass deportations.
Ferrari is now halfway through a nearly six-week tour to 21 cities and regions across California, Washington state, Texas, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Indiana, Michigan, Louisiana, Washington, D.C., New Jersey and New York, carrying the Catholic church’s message of support to faith-based community organizing groups throughout the U.S.
He and his fellow delegation members “sit and listen and ask just such deep questions, but in such a gentle and pastoral and loving way,” said Flores.
Ferrari is traveling with Luca Casarini, the founder of Mediterranea Saving Humans, which has reacted to the deaths of thousands of migrants crossing the Mediterranean by crewing a ship for sea rescues. Ferrari is the group’s chaplain. Leo spent July 4, the 250th anniversary of the U.S. adoption of the Declaration of Independence, at Lampedusa, a common destination for those crossings.
The Rev. Mattia Ferrari, right, greets parishioners after celebrating a Mass at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, on June 21, 2026, in Mecca, Calif. (Photo courtesy of Catholics in Communion)
The third member of the delegation for the U.S. tour is César Piscoya, an adviser to the Latin American bishops’ conference’s (CELAM) Center for Pastoral Action Programs and Networks. Piscoya, a lay theologian and longtime friend of Leo’s, was a missionary with the Augustinians, Leo’s order, and then worked with then-Bishop Robert Prevost when he led the Diocese of Chiclayo, Peru.
“Something they keep saying is, they’ve seen a suffering they didn’t really know existed in the United States,” said Flores, who is the executive director of the Catholic Volunteer Network when she isn’t volunteering with Catholics in Communion. “A lot of people share that the image that they have learned of the U.S., whether that’s through media or how they were told growing up, they get here and they see it’s really not as easy as people might think it is.”
But the delegation is also seeing “a church that is uniting to take care of one another and to embody what it means to be the body of Christ, to move in defense of the dignity of each person on this earth and in this country,” said Flores.
Across the U.S., immigration has been a core focus of the trip. “This is a matter of love, a matter of human dignity, a matter of the gospel. Because what these people are suffering — this pain — is also our pain because we are brothers and sisters,” said Ferrari.
But immigration has not been the only issue raised by the tour. In Houston, the delegation visited a dialysis center for people without insurance that The Metropolitan Organization of Houston advocated for, and in Pittsburgh, Ferrari heard from local labor and environmental leaders about the challenges of abandoned gas wells and the transformation of the energy economy.
In San Diego, the delegation joined diocesan-backed teams to accompany immigrants to court hearings and ICE check-ins. Ferrari said that he was moved by witnessing immigrants’ initial tears of fear and pain become tears of solidarity when they knew they would be joined by the volunteers.
In Monterey Bay, California, the delegation toured rural farm-working communities and attended an event at a Catholic parish to enroll immigrants without legal status in public healthcare, an initiative that the local Industrial Areas Foundation Affiliate Communities Organized for Relational Power in Action had fought for.
Liz Hall, who is the supervising organizer for the IAF in Monterey Bay, recalled Ferrari’s comments that the healthcare initiative showed “the miracle of solidarity.”
“I don’t think he realized how much that meant to the people in the room to hear someone who came from the Vatican to this very rural, kind of forgotten part of the state” say those words, Hall said.
In Los Angeles, Ferrari’s delegation attended a public hearing hosted by local IAF affiliate One LA where immigrants shared their experiences of the mass deportation campaign, including witnessing violent detentions.
Emily, a 21-year-old college student studying civil engineering who asked to be identified by her first name because she does not have legal immigration status, said if she had not already enrolled in university, fear of sharing her information would have prevented her from studying.
“I fear that I might just be studying in class, and because universities are public spaces, they could just come in and unfortunately just get us,” she told RNS.
Testifying to that experience publicly for the first time at the parish she has attended since she arrived from Mexico as a baby was “vulnerable” but empowering, she said. “I just felt so much better, so much, for me to know there were more people (experiencing this) and that the church actually cared about us,” she said.
Robert Hoo, the lead organizer for One LA, said that the impact is widespread. “It’s recognizing that the Vatican is watching, that the world is watching, that their stories are important not just to themselves and their communities, but that everybody is aware about the injustices that are happening.”
Ortencia Ramirez, a One LA leader who co-chaired the hearing, fought to hold back tears at hearing the experiences of her community. But she too felt hope because of the connection to Leo. “We asked them to take what they observed with the IAF back to the pope, and they agreed that they would,” she said.
The delegation also participated in a panel of organizers hosted at Dolores Mission, an organizing base for another interfaith group working on immigration, LA Voice, part of the Faith in Action network. Angel Mortel, a lead organizer for the group, said they shared about their efforts to pass California bills imposing high taxes on private immigration detention companies and remove state financial benefits from companies involved in or investing in detention.
For Mortel, the collaboration between LA Voice, One LA and the archdiocese of LA to plan the trip also brought hope for the future. “This was the first time in my eight years with LA Voice that we’ve done something together,” she said. “Without that collaboration, it’s just too big a task to take on — to take on the forces that are coming down on us,” she said.
Flores said that connections, resource-sharing and opportunities for formation will be some of the long-lasting impacts of Ferrari’s tour, especially because of the presence of Piscoya, a representative of the Latin American bishops’ conference.
In the majority of cities, Ferrari also met with the local Catholic bishop, and in the few cities where the bishop was unavailable, a staff member.
In Houston, Elizabeth Valdez, director of the IAF in Texas, said that Ferrari and his team were impressed by the key roles that clergy play in forming lay people to be leaders in organizing. “They had not seen or experienced that anywhere before, even in the visits that they’ve done in other parts of the country,” she said.
But even visiting 21 different cities and regions, Ferrari regretted the parts of the U.S. that he and his delegation were unable to visit. “We have so much work to do worldwide, so we will be back surely,” he said.
Feastday: July 14 Patron: of the environment and ecology Birth: 1656 Death: April 17, 1680 Beatified: Pope John Paul II Canonized: On 10/21/2012 by Pope Benedict XVI
St. Kateri Tekakwitha is the first Native American to be recognized as a saint by the Catholic Church. She was born in 1656, in the Mohawk village of Ossernenon. Her mother was an Algonquin, who was captured by the Mohawks and who took a Mohawk chief for her husband.
She contracted smallpox as a four-year-old child which scarred her skin. The scars were a source of humiliation in her youth. She was commonly seen wearing a blanket to hide her face. Worse, her entire family died during the outbreak. Kateri Tekakwitha was subsequently raised by her uncle, who was the chief of a Mohawk clan.
Kateri was known as a skilled worker, who was diligent and patient. However, she refused to marry. When her adoptive parents proposed a suitor to her, she refused to entertain the proposal. They punished her by giving her more work to do, but she did not give in. Instead, she remained quiet and diligent. Eventually they were forced to relent and accept that she had no interest in marriage.
At age 19, Kateri Tekakwitha converted to Catholicism, taking a vow of chastity and pledging to marry only Jesus Christ. Her decision was very unpopular with her adoptive parents and their neighbors. Some of her neighbors started rumors of sorcery. To avoid persecution, she traveled to a Christian native community south of Montreal.
According to legend, Kateri was very devout and would put thorns on her sleeping mat. She often prayed for the conversion of her fellow Mohawks. According to the Jesuit missionaries that served the community where Kateri lived, she often fasted and when she would eat, she would taint her food to diminish its flavor. On at least one occasion, she burned herself. Such self-mortification was common among the Mohawk.
Kateri was very devout and was known for her steadfast devotion. She was also very sickly. Her practices of self-mortification and denial may not have helped her health. Sadly, just five years after her conversion to Catholicism, she became ill and passed away at age 24, on April 17, 1680.
Her name, Kateri, is the Mohawk form of Catherine, which she took from St. Catherine of Siena.
St. Kateri Tekakwitha was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI on Oct. 21, 2012. She is the patroness of ecology and the environment, people in exile and Native Americans.
Our Editorial Director, Andrea Tornielli, reflects on the role of the Successor of Peter and his Magisterium.
By Andrea Tornielli
Even when he speaks about war and peace, migration or how to remain human in the age of artificial intelligence, the Successor of Peter remains, above all, a spiritual leader. The fact that the Bishop of Rome, by virtue of the Lateran Pacts of 1929 that resolved the “Roman Question,” is also the sovereign of the world’s smallest state—less than half a square kilometer in the heart of the Italian capital—does not mean that he acts or speaks as a politician when addressing issues concerning the affairs of humanity.
Pope Paul VI explained this well in his address on October 4, 1965, to the United Nations General Assembly: “This gathering,” he said, “as you are all well aware, has a twofold nature: it is marked at one and the same time by simplicity and by greatness. By simplicity because the one who is speaking to you is a man like yourselves. He is your brother, and even one of the least among you who represent sovereign States, since he possesses—if you choose to consider us from this point of view—only a tiny and practically symbolic temporal sovereignty: the minimum needed in order to be free to exercise his spiritual mission and to assure those who deal with him that he is independent of any sovereignty of this world.” The Pope, on a visit to the United States, immediately added, speaking about himself: “He has no temporal power, no ambition to enter into competition with you. As a matter of fact, we have nothing to ask, no question to raise; at most a desire to formulate, a permission to seek that of being allowed to serve you in the area of our competence, with disinterestedness, humility and love.”
It is true that, to guarantee the absolute freedom of the Vicar of Christ, it was established nearly a century ago that there would be a tiny patch of land where the Bishop of Rome and Shepherd of the Universal Church would also be sovereign—and thus head of state. But this was, and remains, an arrangement designed to recognize precisely this need for independence from any other state, and not an affirmation of a dual mission. Any glorification or exaggeration of the Pope’s role as head of state, any emphasis on the importance of this role, is therefore misleading because it comes at the expense of his one true mission as universal Shepherd. A Shepherd who speaks to Catholics, Christians, believers, and all people of good will with the sole intent of proclaiming the Gospel—his message of love, brotherhood, and “unarmed and disarming” peace.
This was aptly emphasized by the then-Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini, Cardinal Archbishop of Milan, in his address at the Campidoglio on October 10, 1962, on the eve of the opening of the Second Vatican Council. In that speech, the future Pope, speaking of the end of the Church’s temporal power with the fall of the Papal States in 1870, said: “It was then that the papacy resumed with unusual vigor its functions as teacher of life and witness to the Gospel, thus rising to such heights in the spiritual governance of the Church and in its moral influence on the world as never before.”
When he calls for human life to be respected and protected at every stage of its existence, when he speaks of peace with the good of all peoples in mind and calls for an end to the mad arms race—even going beyond the concept of a “just war”—when he calls for dialogue and negotiation by invoking the Magisterium of Social Doctrine, when he calls for migrants to be regarded as people to be welcomed, without ever forgetting their human dignity; when he reminds us that the poor are at the heart of the Gospel and that we must build more just and equitable societies; when he defends the right to religious freedom; when he emphasizes the importance of caring for Creation so that we may pass it on to our children and grandchildren—the Successor of Peter is not speaking as a head of state. He is simply proclaiming the Gospel.
Feastday: July 13 Patron: of the childless, of Dukes, of the handicapped and those rejected by Religious Order Death: 1024
St. Henry, son of Henry, Duke of Bavaria, and of Gisella, daughter of Conrad, King of Burgundy, was born in 972. He received an excellent education under the care of St. Wolfgang, Bishop of Ratisbon. In 995, St. Henry succeeded his father as Duke of Bavaria, and in 1002, upon the death of his cousin, Otho III, he was elected emperor. Firmly anchored upon the great eternal truths, which the practice of meditation kept alive in his heart, he was not elated by this dignity and sought in all things, the greater glory of God. He was most watchful over the welfare of the Church and exerted his zeal for the maintenance of ecclesiastical discipline through the instrumentality of the Bishops. He gained several victories over his enemies, both at home and abroad, but he used these with great moderation and clemency. In 1014, he went to Rome and received the imperial crown at the hands of Pope Benedict VIII. On that occasion he confirmed the donation, made by his predecessors to the Pope, of the sovereignty of Rome and the exarchate of Ravenna. Circumstances several times drove the holy Emperor into war, from which he always came forth victorious. He led an army to the south of Italy against the Saracens and their allies, the Greeks, and drove them from the country. The humility and spirit of justice of the Saint were equal to his zeal for religion. He cast himself at the feet of Herebert, Bishop of Cologne, and begged his pardon for having treated him with coldness, on account of a misunderstanding. He wished to abdicate and retire into a monastery, but yielded to the advice of the Abbot of Verdun, and retained his dignity. Both he and his wife, St. Cunegundes, lived in perpetual chastity, to which they had bound themselves by vow. The Saint made numerous pious foundations, gave liberally to pious institutions and built the Cathedral of Bamberg. His holy death occurred at the castle of Grone, near Halberstad, in 1024. His feast day is July 13th. He is the patron saint of the childless, of Dukes, of the handicapped and those rejected by Religious Order.
Pope to inaugurate exhibition cycle at Vatican Apostolic Library
Pope Leo XIV will visit the Vatican Apostolic Library on Monday, September 14, and will inaugurate the first chapter of the exhibition cycle “Catastrophe and Wonder,” entitled “AQVA.”
By Deborah Castellano Lubov
The Vatican Apostolic Library announced on Sunday that the Pope will visit the Library on Monday, September 14, at 11 AM to inaugurate the exhibition cycle “AQVA. Catastrophe and Wonder.”
The exhibition will be open to visitors on selected days of the week from September 25 through May 14, 2027.
Additional details on the exhibit curated by the Library's Vice-Prefect Father Giacomo Cardinali, Simona De Crescenzo, Francesca Giannetto, and Delio Proverbio, will be made available shortly.
'A home where past and future can meet as friends'
The display brings together the works of three contemporary figures—French artist JR, American typographer Bill Moran, and the Italian chef Fulvio Pierangelini—in dialogue with the collections and spaces of the Pope’s Library, offering a reflection on water as both a threat and a resource.
Each of the three artistic collaborators reinterprets the library’s historical collections through their own artistic practices.
The Librarian and Archivist of the Holy Roman Church, Monsignor Giovanni Cesare Pagazzi, expressed his delight to welcome the Holy Father, noting the exhibition "are intended to foster dialogue between contemporary art and the library’s centuries-old heritage.
"On several occasions," Monsignor Pagazzi recalled, "the Pope has emphasized fidelity to the past and fidelity to the future. The present – including the present of this exhibition – can become a home where past and future meet as friends."
Ancient institution belonging to the Pope
The Vatican Apostolic Library, an ancient institution dedicated to preservation and research, belongs to the Pope and is closely connected to the governance and ministry of the Holy See.
Its vast collections, comprising manuscripts, archival materials, printed volumes, both ancient and modern, coins and medals, prints and drawings, as well as cartographic and photographic materials, have long been accessible to qualified scholars from around the world, regardless of race, religion, origin, or culture.
The libraryto specializes primarily in philological and historical disciplines and, retrospectively, also in theology, law, and the sciences.
With historic ties to the papal Scrinium, whose existence is documented as early as the 4th century, the library began its modern history with Pope Nicholas V, who in the mid-15th century decided to open the papal book collections to scholars, and with Pope Sixtus IV, who provided a more stable organizational structure through the Bull Ad decorem militantis Ecclesiae of June 15, 1475.
At the Angelus in Castel Gandolfo, where he is taking a summer break, Pope Leo XIV reflects on the Parable of the Sower, reminding Christians that God's Word has the power to transform every heart and encouraging the faithful to make space this summer for silence, prayer, and meditation on Scripture.
By Linda Bordoni
Reflecting on the Gospel parable of the Sower during Sunday's Angelus prayer, Pope Leo XIV said God never tires of sowing the seed of His Word in the human heart, because He knows that "the power of his love is stronger than our weakness."
Addressing pilgrims gathered in Castel Gandolfo on the Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, the Pope explained that Saint Matthew's account of the Parable of the Sower reveals "the generosity and trust with which God sows his Word in our hearts and his power in us."
At the centre of that mystery, he said, is Christ Himself.
"Jesus himself, the Word made flesh, who gave his life for our salvation, is the seed that the Father continues to sow throughout the world so that, by dying, he may bear much fruit," he explained.
The Pope acknowledged that God's Word does not always find welcoming hearts. At times, he said, it encounters "hard and unresponsive soil," or hearts distracted like "the beaten path, the rocky ground, or the thorny bushes." Yet there are also moments when it falls on "receptive and fertile ground," where "miracles of love are set in motion that have the power to transform everything."
It is for this reason, he continued, that "the Father never ceases to sow, because he knows that the power of his love is stronger than our weakness."
God sees the good within us
Quoting Saint John Chrysostom, Pope Leo reflected on the apparent paradox of sowing seed where it seems unlikely to grow. While such an action would make little sense in agriculture, he noted, God works differently, since even "rocky ground may be transformed into fertile soil."
The Pope said this is because God's confidence in humanity is rooted in His intimate knowledge of every person. "God's generosity towards us is not naïve but wise," he said. "He sees within us the potential of a good that, at times, we ourselves might fail to recognise."
For that reason, he added, "the Lord, who knows the soil of our hearts better than we, never ceases to believe in us—in who we are and in who we can become, day by day, if we entrust ourselves to him in faith."
Bearing the fruits of the Spirit
When God's Word is welcomed with humility and openness, the Pope said, it bears the fruits of the Holy Spirit. And recalling Saint Paul's Letter to the Galatians, he listed those fruits as "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control."
"How greatly our world stands in need of these fruits," he said, "to be filled with them and transformed by them!"
A summer invitation
Referring to the current summer season, Pope Leo encouraged Christians to make good use of time for rest by nurturing their spiritual lives.
"Let us therefore resolve, especially during these summer days of vacation, to make room for listening to, reading, and meditating on the Word of God," he said, while also fostering "meaningful moments of silence and prayer."
Such moments, he explained, renew both body and spirit, preparing Christians to return to their daily lives "ready to proclaim the Good News of the Gospel and ever more capable of contributing to the growth of the Kingdom of God."
