Overview
- Roughly 70,000 people filled St. Peter’s Square and Via della Conciliazione, with dignitaries including Italy’s President Sergio Mattarella, Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun, Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Maronite Patriarch Bechara Rai.
- The other new saints are Ignazio Choukrallah Maloyan, Peter To Rot—the first saint from Papua New Guinea—Vincenza Maria Poloni, Maria Troncatti and María Carmen Rendiles Martínez.
- Pope Leone XIV’s homily emphasized consolation in suffering and his Angelus renewed pleas for a cease-fire in Myanmar and prayers for peace in the Holy Land and Ukraine.
- Venezuelan reactions spanned a prayer protest in Rome calling for the release of political prisoners, including Italian aid worker Alberto Trentini, and public praise from President Nicolás Maduro on social media.
- Church officials confirmed that Pope Francis had approved the dispensations and advanced the causes before his death, decisions later ratified at Leone XIV’s June consistory.