Joshua J. McElwee

Reuters • 22nd December 2025

Pope Leo's new US bishops are critics of Trump's migrant crackdown

Most of Pope Leo's appointments for Catholic bishops in the U.S. have called for better treatment of immigrants in the country, in a trend that may shape how the national Church responds to the Trump administration's divisive anti-immigration policies.

Reuters • 7th November 2025

Pope Leo's critique of Trump emboldens top US Catholics to help immigrants

Pope Leo's recent criticisms of U.S. President Donald Trump's anti-immigration policies are emboldening Catholic efforts to help immigrants caught up in the administration's hardline crackdown, senior U.S. Church leaders say.

Reuters • 4th October 2025

Pope Leo's critique of Trump ends honeymoon with conservative Catholics

Pope Leo initially impressed conservative Catholics after his election in May as he embraced traditions shunned by his predecessor Pope Francis and steered clear of hot button social issues that divided the 1.4 billion-member Church. But his honeymoon with conservatives appears over.

Reuters • 8th September 2025

With Gaza appeals, Pope Leo shows quiet but robust diplomatic style

Pope Leo's recent forceful statements about the war in Gaza and his strong call for a ceasefire during a meeting last week with Israeli President Isaac Herzog showed the new leader of the Catholic Church developing a robust, if quiet, diplomatic style.

Reuters • 27th February 2025

Pope Francis clashed with cardinals over Vatican finances before hospitalization

Before he was hospitalized for double pneumonia, Pope Francis was battling firm resistance from some of his own cardinals about how to plug a widening gap in the Vatican's finances. Three days before his hospitalization, Francis ordered the creation of a new high-level commission to encourage donations to the headquarters of the 1.4-billion-member Catholic Church.

Reuters • 22nd January 2025

Pope Francis will not veto Trump's Vatican ambassador pick, officials say

Pope Francis is not expected to veto President Donald Trump's choice of a high-profile critic of his papacy as the next U.S. ambassador to the Holy See, according to two senior Vatican officials, despite misgivings about his stance on many issues.

National Catholic Reporter • 16th April 2024

What did Pope Francis really think about Benedict XVI?

Listen: In this episode of The Vatican Briefing, Joshua McElwee and Christopher White discuss the Vatican's document "Dignitas Infinita." And they speak with a Vatican journalist about his book-length interview with Pope Francis.

National Catholic Reporter • 4th April 2024

Bishop Gumbleton, longtime soul of the US Catholic peace movement, dies

Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, the Detroit prelate who for many American Catholics defined faith-based social justice activism in the post-Vatican II church, died April 4. He was 94. "To put it most succinctly, Tom lived out the peace of Christ in his complete being," said Johnny Zokovitch, Pax Christi USA's executive director, shortly after the bishop's death. "Everything that our movement strives to be was evident in Tom and how Tom lived."

National Catholic Reporter • 22nd March 2024

At UN event, Vatican presses for global ban on child surrogacy

The Vatican's mission to the United Nations pressed for an international prohibition against the practice of child surrogacy on March 20, during a panel discussion that framed arrangements where women carry others' children as exploitative and contrary to the U.N.'s landmark 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child.

National Catholic Reporter • 20th March 2024

Ukrainian archbishop: Pope Francis doesn't understand Putin

A prominent U.S. Ukrainian Catholic leader has sharply criticized Pope Francis' recent suggestion that Ukraine might enter negotiations to end its brutal, two-year war with Russia, calling the pontiff's remarks "very problematic."

National Catholic Reporter • 27th February 2024

Has Pope Francis failed to root out clergy sexual abuse?

In this episode of "The Vatican Briefing," BishopAccountability.org co-director Anne Barrett Doyle offers a blunt assessment of Pope Francis' efforts to confront clergy sexual abuse.

National Catholic Reporter • 13th February 2024

Inside the Vatican's synod office: 'New style of leadership' for Catholic Church

As the Vatican prepares to host the second part of Pope Francis' major summit on the future of the Catholic Church this October, one of the event's main organizers said a central purpose of the gathering is to create "a new style of leadership" for the global faith institution. From an exclusive interview with Xavière Sr. Nathalie Becquart.

National Catholic Reporter • 30th January 2024

Exclusive: Vatican's abuse expert says ending priestly celibacy could prevent a 'double life'

One of the Catholic Church's leading doctrinal officials has reiterated his unusual call for the global institution to consider ending its millennia-long requirement that priests remain celibate, saying that allowing priestly marriage could be a means of preventing clerics from living dangerous double lives. In an exclusive interview with National Catholic Reporter on Jan. 24, Archbishop Charles Scicluna said: "One of my worries is that people are put in a situation where they are comfortable with a double life."

National Catholic Reporter • 30th October 2023

Exclusive: Cardinals Cupich, McElroy say 'impossible to go back' to synods without lay voters

Two U.S. cardinals said one of the immediate results of Pope Francis' major summit on the future of the Catholic Church is that it should now be "impossible" to return to an era where lay men and women are not given both a voice and vote in major Vatican meetings.

National Catholic Reporter • 17th October 2023

Pope Francis meets Jeannine Gramick, US sister known for LGBTQ ministry

Pope Francis on Oct. 17 held a meeting with an American Catholic sister who had previously been reprimanded by the Vatican and several U.S. bishops for her decadeslong ministry to LGBTQ Catholics.

National Catholic Reporter • 13th September 2023

Swedish Catholic cardinal, Lutheran bishop make joint DC visit for ecumenical dialogue

Sweden's only Catholic cardinal came to the U.S. for a brief visit in late August. But he did not come alone. Cardinal Anders Arborelius, who has led the small Catholic community in Sweden since 1998, came to Washington, D.C., alongside Bishop Karin Johannesson, an assistant bishop in the Lutheran Archdiocese of Uppsala.

National Catholic Reporter • 2nd August 2023

Archbishop Wester asks US Catholics for 'urgent conversation' about nuclear weapons' risks

Santa Fe Archbishop John Wester is undertaking a "Pilgrimage of Peace" to Japan to promote nuclear disarmament. In an NCR interview, Wester called on U.S. Catholics to have an "urgent conversation" about the continued risks posed by nuclear weapons.

National Catholic Reporter • 2nd August 2023

Archbishop Wester asks US Catholics for 'urgent conversation' about nuclear weapons' risks

Santa Fe Archbishop John Wester is undertaking a "Pilgrimage of Peace" to Japan to promote nuclear disarmament. In an NCR interview, Wester called on U.S. Catholics to have an "urgent conversation" about the continued risks posed by nuclear weapons.

National Catholic Reporter • 7th February 2023

Exclusive: Vatican must treat abuse victims better, pope's lead investigator says

Pope Francis' lead clergy abuse investigator has acknowledged survivors' frustrations with the Vatican's strict culture of secrecy about Catholic bishops accused of misconduct or cover-up. In a National Catholic Reporter interview, Scicluna admitted the Vatican is not at what he termed "an optimal point" with regard to how it follows up with abuse victims.

National Catholic Reporter • 7th February 2023

Theologian Gaillardetz warns against over-critique of church in 'last lecture'

Theologians from across the U.S. gathered in Boston Sept. 23-24 for a conference celebrating the legacy of Richard Gaillardetz, one of the country's foremost experts on the exercise of authority in the Catholic Church, who is receiving treatment for pancreatic cancer.