“Christmas must serve to reaffirm the centrality of Christ in our lives,” Cardinal Parolin said to 400 legislators in the Sistine Chapel on the evening of December 16. “Advent is the time when the sense of the Lord’s return is alive, for we all die and we all must present ourselves to the judgment of the tribunal of God.”

“We must make room for him, prepare the manger within ourselves, not only the external one—a beautiful tradition that must be preserved—but above all within ourselves,” he added. “Christmas is an event that must transform us inwardly; otherwise, its meaning remains empty despite the external celebrations.”

At the conclusion of his December 17 general audience, Pope Leo XIV recommended Confession in preparation for Christmas and praised the custom of the Christmas novena.

“Peace exists; it wants to dwell within us,” Pope Leo XIV writes in his message for the 59th annual World Day of Peace.

In a Vatican News interview, Bishop Hicks said: “All I want to do is God’s will, and however God moves me to be a leader in New York, I want to follow that and just give all of my mind, heart, and soul.”

The Catholic bishops of New York quickly responded with a statement saying that assisted suicide is a “grave moral evil,” and “in direct conflict with Catholic teaching on the sacredness and dignity of all human life.”

Governor Hochul, a graduate of Catholic University, said that her choice to sign the legislation—making New York the 13th state to allow assisted suicide—was “an incredibly difficult decision.”

WASHINGTON – Pope Leo XIV has appointed as Bishop of Monterey, the Most Reverend Ramón Bejarano, currently Auxiliary Bishop of San Diego. The appointment was publicized in Washington, D.C. on December 17, 2025, by Cardinal Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the United States.

The Diocese of Monterey is comprised of 21,916 square miles in the State of California and has a total population of 1,042,464, of which 368,150, are Catholic.

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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- In today's fast-paced world with pressures for results and efficiency, Pope Leo XIV said many have been stripped of their serenity and ability to live.

"The authentic approach of the heart does not consist in possessing the goods of this world, but in achieving what can fill it completely; namely, the love of God, or rather, God who is love," the pope said in the Dec. 17 weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square.

Furthermore, he said one can feel restless despite completing countless tasks, "because we are not machines, we have a 'heart'; indeed, we can say that we are a heart."

In the final weeks of the Jubilee year, he spoke facing the 82-foot-tall decorated Christmas tree and newly unveiled Nativity scene near the obelisk in the center of the square. Because of the unpredictable weather, sick children and their families, along with elderly and disabled people, sat in the Paul VI Audience Hall where Pope Leo greeted them individually before arriving in the popemobile and waving to the crowd in the square. 

Continuing his series of audience talks on "Jesus our hope," the pope focused on turning toward God and his love as the answer to this restlessness. Jesus' incarnation, passion, death and resurrection give us a foundation of hope, the pope said.

"Dear friends, here is the secret of the movement of the human heart: returning to the source of its being, delighting in the joy that never fails, that never disappoints," the pope said. "No one can live without a meaning that goes beyond the contingent, beyond what passes away. The human heart cannot live without hope, without knowing that it is made for fullness, not for want."

To overcome the "vortex that overwhelms us," Pope Leo pointed to St. Matthew, saying that life's true treasure is the heart rather than achievements or the goods of this world. 

"It is therefore in the heart that true treasure is kept, not in earthly safes, not in large financial investments, which today more than ever before are out of control and unjustly concentrated at the bloody price of millions of human lives and the devastation of God's creation," he said in his main catechesis in Italian.

He went on to refer to St. Augustine, who said that hearts will remain restless until they are with the Lord.

"That restlessness is not arbitrary and disordered; it is oriented toward heaven, whose doors are open to us thanks to the incarnation, passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ," the pope said in his English-language remarks. "If we enter into the dynamism of his love and grace, he will be victorious in us -- not just at the hour of our death, but also today, right now and every day hereafter."
 

Pope Leo: Our hope is in the Resurrection

A look at Pope Leo's general audience Dec. 17, 2025. (CNS video/Robert Duncan)