Pope Leo XIV was visibly tearing up as Andrea Bocelli sang “Amazing Grace,” joined by a choir of 160 children drawn from war-ravaged countries around the world. The moment came this past week at the Concert for Peace at Castel Gandolfo.
Christopher Hale
@christopherjhale.bsky.social
Proud Tennessean. ’20 Democratic nominee for Congress & DNC Delegate. Obama-Biden White House & campaign alum. Former nonprofit exec. Bad guitarist & good 💃.
Pope Francis invited Anthony Fauci to the Vatican. Donald Trump gave him a presidential commendation. Now MAGA wants to throw him in jail. Catholics have seen this McCarthy nonsense before, and we must stand up to it again.
Pope Francis Invited Anthony Fauci to the Vatican. MAGA Wants to Throw Him in Jail.
Fauci opened the Vatican’s 2021 “Unite to Prevent and Unite to Cure” summit, and Francis delivered its closing address. A contempt vote lands next week — and seventeen state attorneys general are hunt...
thelettersfromleo.com
NEW: Pope Leo XIV told pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday that hoarding and waste are “two sides of the same evil: greed.” In today’s Gospel, compassion moves Jesus to refuse to send the hungry crowd away. He hands their need to his own disciples instead — “give them some food yourselves.”
God Gets Caught Up in Our Chaos
In John’s telling a boy handed over five barley loaves, and God stretched that child’s inch into a mile. Someone near you is carrying a mess that would fit in your hands.
open.substack.com
“I came without a speech, because I’m hungry. “I’m hungry for justice, hungry for authentic charity, hungry for a Church that truly knows how to open the doors, welcome, receive everyone, where there is love for all and where no one is an enemy.” — Pope Leo XIV at lunch with 200 refugees
NEW: Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, facing ethics inquiries for misconduct, has threatened to strip state scholarships from Catholic schools unless the Church rewrites its vaccine doctrine. It is an unprecedented attack by an American state on the religious liberty of the Catholic Church.
Florida’s MAGA Attorney Threatens to Defund Catholic Schools Over Vaccine Mandate
Florida’s attorney general gave the bishops until August 7 to accept vaccine exemptions their own doctrine calls dishonest. Nearly nine in ten of the state’s Catholic school students sit downstream.
thelettersfromleo.com
Not getting a vaccine is like driving through a red light. It’s your decision. But you’re not the only one who experiences the consequences of that decision.
Pope Francis Invited Anthony Fauci to the Vatican. MAGA Wants to Throw Him in Jail.
Fauci opened the Vatican’s 2021 “Unite to Prevent and Unite to Cure” summit, and Francis delivered its closing address. A contempt vote lands next week — and seventeen state attorneys general are…
thelettersfromleo.com
NEW: Pope Leo XIV received Patti Smith at the Vatican on Friday, a forty-minute private audience between two natives of Chicago. Within hours, the Catholic right was asking why the Godmother of Punk rates a papal audience and the right-wing dissident sect Society of St. Pius X does not.
The Godmother of Punk Meets Pope Leo XIV — and Catholic Right Revolts
The poet who eulogized Francis as a dandelion among stones sat across Leo’s desk Friday and said “Hi.” Hours later, LifeSiteNews wanted to know why she got an audience and the SSPX got none.
open.substack.com
A seven-year-old named William asked what one miracle Pope Francis would perform if he could. “I would heal children. I’ve never been able to understand why children suffer,” Francis answered. “My answer to the pain of children is silence. I’m not afraid to cry. You shouldn’t be either.”
“Fall in Love, Stay in Love” — On St. Ignatius’s Feast, the Five Jesuit Values Pope Francis Lived
Five stories of the first Jesuit pope, from a teenage confession in Buenos Aires to his final Easter in St. Peter’s Square. An 800-year-old friendship in Assisi ties Francis to Pope Leo XIV.
thelettersfromleo.com
NEW: On the feast of St. Ignatius, a pattern emerges: the Jesuits got their first pope in 2013, and twelve years later an Augustinian succeeded him. Francis handpicked Prevost, sent him to Peru in 2014, then brought him to Rome. In Salvatore Cernuzio’s book Padre, Francis calls him a saint.
“Fall in Love, Stay in Love” — On St. Ignatius’s Feast, the Five Jesuit Values Pope Francis Lived
Five stories of the first Jesuit pope, from a teenage confession in Buenos Aires to his final Easter in St. Peter’s Square. An 800-year-old friendship in Assisi ties Francis to Pope Leo XIV.
thelettersfromleo.com
NEW: On the feast of St. Ignatius, a pattern emerges: the Jesuits got their first pope in 2013, and twelve years later an Augustinian succeeded him. Francis handpicked Prevost, sent him to Peru in 2014, then brought him to Rome. In Salvatore Cernuzio’s book Padre, Francis calls him a saint.
“Fall in Love, Stay in Love” — On St. Ignatius’s Feast, the Five Jesuit Values Pope Francis Lived
Five stories of the first Jesuit pope, from a teenage confession in Buenos Aires to his final Easter in St. Peter’s Square. An 800-year-old friendship in Assisi ties Francis to Pope Leo XIV.
thelettersfromleo.com
The godmother of punk Patti Smith met Pope Leo XIV this morning.
The godmother of punk Patti Smith met Pope Leo XIV this morning.
Pope Francis invited Anthony Fauci to the Vatican. Donald Trump gave him a presidential commendation. Now MAGA wants to throw him in jail. Catholics have seen this McCarthy nonsense before, and we must stand up to it again.
Pope Francis Invited Anthony Fauci to the Vatican. MAGA Wants to Throw Him in Jail.
Fauci opened the Vatican’s 2021 “Unite to Prevent and Unite to Cure” summit, and Francis delivered its closing address. A contempt vote lands next week — and seventeen state attorneys general are hunt...
thelettersfromleo.com
Pope Leo XIV says that the Catholic Church’s teaching on sexual ethics must be less prioritized over “greater, more important issues.” “We tend to think that when the Church is talking about morality, that the only issue of morality is sexual. “There are much greater, more important issues.“
“We have to change attitudes before we can ever change doctrine.” — Pope Leo XIV
From the bottom of my heart, thank you for reading.
The Trump-Vance White House is attempting to deport 300,000 Haitian Catholics and force them to return to their homeland ravaged by political turmoil, gang violence, and rampant poverty. Inspired by Pope Leo XIV, the Church is fighting back.
As Trump-Vance White House Attempts to Deport Haitian Catholics, Church Fights Back
One night after protections lapsed for more than 300,000 Haitians, a Maryland parish held a mass of solidarity — and Miami’s archbishop spent two days on Capitol Hill demanding the Senate act.
thelettersfromleo.com
“Father, we are children, and we only ask not to be afraid of the dark. “War is a dark night that takes away our friends, our parents, our schools, and our homes. And no one can tell us why. “It is so hard for us to understand why grown-ups wage war.” — A girl from Bethlehem, praying before Leo
“Father, we are children, and we only ask not to be afraid of the dark. “War is a dark night that takes away our friends, our parents, our schools, and our homes. And no one can tell us why. “It is so hard for us to understand why grown-ups wage war.” — A girl from Bethlehem, praying before Leo
NEW: Pope Leo XIV called immigrants one of the greatest wealths of the United States in an NBC News interview with Tom Llamas on Wednesday — and said his first papal visit home will come "in the next couple of years." At his Concert for Peace, children of war begged God to teach grown-ups peace.
In NBC Interview, Pope Leo XIV Says Immigrants Are One of America’s “Greatest Wealths”
Speaking to NBC before his Concert for Peace, the pope said his American trip will come “in the next couple of years.” He spent this year’s Fourth of July with the migrants of Lampedusa instead.
thelettersfromleo.com
NEW: Pope Leo XIV tells NBC News that what he loves about America is that we have “invited for generations people from around the world to be part of America.” Noting that he’s the grandson of immigrants, he calls immigration one of the nation’s “greatest wealths.”
Pope Leo XIV was visibly tearing up as Andrea Bocelli sang “Amazing Grace,” joined by a choir of 160 children drawn from war-ravaged countries around the world. The moment came this afternoon at the Concert for Peace at Castel Gandolfo.
Bishop Barron is threatening to sue me for a tweet that he says undercounts his YouTube numbers. The bishop’s descent into MAGA hell is escalating. Here’s the latest.
After Lawsuit Threat, Bishop Barron Falls Deeper into MAGA Abyss
Bishop Barron’s lawyers sent me a threat of legal action this week, demanding a correction about his YouTube numbers. Their letter never asks me to retract the charge that he has gone full MAGA.
substack.com
NEW: The Trump Administration is on the verge of deporting 300,000 Haitian Catholics, and inspired by Pope Leo XIV, the Church is fighting back. Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski is urging lawmakers to pass an extension so Haitians are not forced back to a homeland ravaged by gangs, poverty, and war.
As Trump-Vance White House Attempts to Deport Haitian Catholics, Church Fights Back
One night after protections lapsed for more than 300,000 Haitians, a Maryland parish held a mass of solidarity — and Miami’s archbishop spent two days on Capitol Hill demanding the Senate act.
thelettersfromleo.com
Pope Leo XIV has appointed Archbishop Christophe-Zakhia El-Kassis as the Holy See’s observer to the UN — a Maronite priest born in Beirut, taking the Vatican’s New York seat while Israeli troops remain in southern Lebanon. It comes amid a first year of rising friction with Israel and Netanyahu.
Pope Leo XIV Sends a Maronite from Beirut to the United Nations as Israeli Troops Hold Southern Lebanon
Archbishop Christophe-Zakhia El-Kassis is the first Arab country prelate ever to represent a pope at the UN, and the first Eastern Catholic in the job.
thelettersfromleo.com
NEW: Before the conclave, a well-funded conservative outfit built dossiers on the candidates with one aim: get a right-winger elected. On Robert Prevost, they somehow missed his Twitter, where he’d posted criticism of Trump and JD Vance. All that money, and nobody read the man’s Twitter.
“Just Say Nothing” — What I Learned in Rome About Pope Leo XIV
An Irish novelist’s essay has become a key reading of this pontificate. Two weeks of Roman conversations revealed a pope building for decades — and watching the American Church closely.
thelettersfromleo.com
NEW: An Irish novelist’s satire has seemingly become Pope Leo XIV’s operating manual. In May 2025, Colm Tóibín jokingly advised the pope to stay silent on the Latin Mass, communion, and gay Catholics. The goal: quietly move the Church forward in a progressive manner without provoking pushback.
“Just Say Nothing” — What I Learned in Rome About Pope Leo XIV
An Irish novelist’s essay has become a key reading of this pontificate. Two weeks of Roman conversations revealed a pope building for decades — and watching the American Church closely.
thelettersfromleo.com
NEW: After pressure from the Catholic Church and members of Congress, the Trump Administration has agreed to let Sister Letty Ugboaja remain in the United States temporarily. ICE arrested her while she was walking to Sunday Mass in her habit. The 56-year-old nurse holds valid work authorization.
NEW: Tom Llamas will have a short interview with Pope Leo XIV that’ll air on NBC Nightly News on Wednesday. This will be the first time he’s given an interview to an American television journalist.