ST. JOHN THE EVANGELIST, SLATERSVILLE RI

The Illinois state capitol in Springfield, where assisted suicide legislation stalled after passing in the House on May 29, 2025. / Credit: E Fehrenbacher/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Jun 3, 2025 / 16:20 pm (CNA).

A bill to legalize physician-assisted suicide in Illinois was not called for a vote in the Senate before the Legislature adjourned on June 1, effectively halting its progress for the session amid ardent opposition from leading Catholic voices in the state.

The bill, which passed in the House at the end of May, would have made it legal for physicians to give “qualified” terminally ill patients life-ending drugs. As the bill failed to move through the General Assembly, physican-asisted suicide remains criminal in Illinois.

Physician-assisted suicide, called medical aid in dying or “MAID” by proponents, is legal in 10 states as well as the nation’s capital. Oregon was the first to legalize the practice in 1994, though an injunction delayed its implementation until 1997.

Under the proposed Illinois legislation, death certificates would show the terminal illness as the cause of death, not suicide.

The bill was included as part of legislation originally intended to address food and sanitation.

Cardinal Blase Cupich, archbishop of Chicago, criticized the bill in a May 30 statement.

“I speak to this topic not only as a religious leader but also as one who has seen a parent die from a debilitating illness,” Cupich said, recalling his father’s death.

Cupich urged Illinois to promote “compassionate care,” not assisted suicide.

“My father was kept comfortable and was cherished until his natural death,” he said. 

Cupich noted that Catholic teaching supports palliative care (a form of care that focuses on improving quality of life, including pain management, for patients with terminal illnesses) “so long as the goal is not to end life.” 

“There is a way to both honor the dignity of human life and provide compassionate care to those experiencing life-ending illness,” Cupich said. “Surely the Illinois Legislature should explore those options before making suicide one of the avenues available to the ill and distressed.”  

State Rep. Adam Niemerg, a Catholic legislator who opposed the bill when it was on the floor in the House, said the practice “does not respect the Gospel.” 

Niemerg urged Illinois legislators to vote against the bill, saying: “We must protect the vulnerable, support the suffering, and uphold the dignity of every human life.”

“It tells the sick, the elderly, the disabled, and the vulnerable that their lives are no longer worth living — that when they face this despair, the best we can offer is a prescription for death,” he said of assisted suicide. “That is not compassion, that is abandonment.”

Niemerg also raised concerns that the law “opens the door to real abuse.”

“We’ve seen where this becomes practice, the patients are denied lifesaving treatment and offered lethal drugs instead,” he said.

Mental health concerns

In his statement, Cupich questioned the move to “to normalize suicide as a solution to life’s challenges” amid a culture already contending with a mental health crisis. 

Suicide is the second-leading cause of death for U.S. teens and young adults, Cupich noted, citing a 2022 study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

He urged politicians to consider “the impact on impressionable young people of legalizing suicide in any form.”

“Suicide contagion is a real risk to these young people after exposure to suicide,” he continued, citing the National Institutes of Health.

“Add to that the ready availability of firearms in the U.S., and this is a tragedy we do not need to compound,” he said.

Cupich also raised concerns about suicide rates increasing if assisted suicide legislation were implemented.

“While the bill sets parameters for assisted suicide, the data from places where assisted suicide is available are clear,” Cupich said. “Rates of all suicide went up after the passage of such legislation.”

“These rates are already unacceptably high, and proposed cutbacks in medical care funding will add to the burden faced by those contemplating suicide,” Cupich said.

A victims’ advocacy group is pressuring New York Gov. Kathy Hochul to force insurers to pay abuse claims. / Credit: lev radin/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Jun 3, 2025 / 15:50 pm (CNA).

A victim advocacy group launched an ad campaign urging New York Gov. Kathy Hochul to force insurance companies to pay millions of dollars in abuse claims, slamming the governor for allegedly “stand[ing] with her big insurance buddies” instead of abuse victims.

The Coalition for Just and Compassionate Compensation, which started in 2023 to pressure insurance companies to pay abuse claims under the state’s Child Victims Act, began running ads in upstate New York markets this week.

“Who turns their back on over 14,000 survivors of child sex abuse? Gov. Kathy Hochul,” an ad states, claiming the Democratic governor “stands with her big insurance buddies [who are] denying responsibility while donating to her campaign.”

The ad features headlines from news stories of abuse scandals, including one that references the Diocese of Buffalo, which earlier this year said it would pay out a massive $150 million sum as part of a settlement with victims of clergy sexual abuse there. 

“Call [Hochul’s] office. Demand she enforce the law. Make big insurance pay, not the survivors they failed,” the advertisement says. 

Passed in 2019, New York’s Child Victims Act extended the statute of limitations involving child sex abuse cases so that victims can file civil lawsuits against both abusers and institutions until the victims themselves are 55 years old. 

It is not just victim advocates who have called for insurers to pay abuse claims in both New York and elsewhere. 

New York archbishop Cardinal Timothy Dolan last year said the archdiocese was launching a lawsuit against its longtime insurer in response to an alleged attempt by the company “to evade their legal and moral contractual obligation” to pay out financial claims to sex abuse victims. 

The Archdiocese of Baltimore similarly sued numerous insurers last year over their alleged failure to pay for abuse claims stretching back several decades.

And earlier this year the Diocese of Trenton, New Jersey, sued its insurance provider over allegations that the company was refusing to pay out sexual abuse claims under that state’s own Child Victims Act.

Neither the New York victims’ group nor the governor’s office responded to requests for comment on the campaign.

A view of the Opera House in the port zone of Sydney, Australia. / Credit: Benh LIEU SONG vía Flickr (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 3, 2025 / 15:20 pm (CNA).

A revival of the Catholic faith is spreading across Australia and beyond, according to Sydney Archbishop Anthony Fisher. 

The Archdiocese of Sydney welcomed a record 384 catechumens and candidates in March, marking a 30% increase from the previous year. In addition, the archdiocese has ordained a bishop, along with two deacons and a priest, just in the past month.

Following a record number of conversions this past Easter, Fisher declared the Church in Sydney to be in a “second spring.” The archbishop attributed the historic growth among the faithful to the Holy Spirit in a speech given over the weekend to Catholic business leaders, according to a report in Catholic Weekly.

“These aren’t just people raised Catholic who are returning — but individuals from diverse backgrounds who are encountering the faith for the first time and finding something deeply compelling,” he said, observing “a genuine hunger for spiritual meaning in an increasingly fragmented world.”

Fisher delivered his speech at a May 30 event with the theme “Signs of Hope in This Jubilee Year,” organized by the Archdiocese of Sydney and sponsored by Catholic Super, a retirement savings fund organization. 

Reflecting on the increasing Mass attendance rates across the archdiocese, Fisher joked: “I might have to get a bigger cathedral.”

Apart from parish life, Fisher pointed to the archdiocese’s Catholic schools, noting that enrollments are “the highest they’ve ever been, and keep growing.”

This phenomenon is not unique to Sydney alone, he noted, citing dioceses across the U.S. that saw similar booms in adult conversions this year.

Among them was the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, which welcomed more than 5,500 new Catholics this past Easter, its highest number of Easter converts in 10 years.

The bishop also pointed to the U.K., which also experienced its highest surge of entrants into the faith this year. France also saw a record 45% increase in new converts at Easter, with young adults making up the majority of the country’s 10,384 adult conversions. 

While Fisher credits the Holy Spirit for the current upward trend of religious conversion, he also noted factors in everyday life that he sees as driving forces, such as the experience of the COVID pandemic. 

Some, he added, were “wowed by the beauty and sacredness of the liturgy, art, or music” or drawn in by a sense of community. 

“It might be too early to declare winter now past, but flowers have appeared in our land,” he concluded. “There are signs of hope.”

The popemobile used by Pope Francis during his visit to Bethlehem in 2014. / Credit: Courtesy of Caritas

ACI Prensa Staff, Jun 3, 2025 / 14:50 pm (CNA).

Prior to his death, Pope Francis donated the popemobile he used during his visit to Bethlehem in May 2014 to be turned into a mobile clinic to assist children in the Gaza Strip.

The initiative was personally entrusted by the late pontiff to Caritas Jerusalem to respond to the grave humanitarian emergency in Gaza, where nearly 1 million displaced children live without access to food, clean water, or basic medical care amid the conflict with Israel.

However, ongoing border restrictions, including the sealing of the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza, have prevented the vehicle, which was refurbished with essential medical equipment, from reaching its destination.

“We are still working in coordination with government agencies to ensure the popemobile enters Gaza. But the borders remain closed, and in my opinion, it will not be possible in the near future,” Harout Bedrossian, press officer for Caritas Jerusalem, confirmed to ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner.

Bedrossian indicated that while some humanitarian aid is entering, “it is controlled by military distribution points” and is not effective as the situation remains “very chaotic.”

One of the main problems facing Caritas on the ground is the shortage of permits issued by the Israeli government to enter Gaza: “Obtaining permits to enter Gaza from Israel is a very arduous and lengthy process. From Egypt, it is a little easier, but as I said, all borders are currently closed.”

Humanitarian aid to the population of Gaza is trickling in, but not without serious problems that have even led to bloodshed in recent days, according to authorities in the Gaza Strip.

According to local observers, Doctors Without Borders and the Red Crescent, Israeli soldiers fired on a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF)-run aid distribution center, killing at least 31 people. However, the GHF denied this report and asserted that the aid was distributed without incident.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

Food and Drug Administration sign at its headquarters in Washington, D.C. / Credit: JHVEPhoto/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Jun 3, 2025 / 14:20 pm (CNA).

A top official at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) confirmed on Monday that the organization will conduct a review of the abortion drug mifepristone following several recent studies challenging the safety of the drug.

FDA Commissioner Marty Makary said he is “committed” to conducting the review in a June 2 letter addressed to Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, who has been an outspoken advocate for reviewing abortion pill safety regulations. 

“As with all drugs, FDA continues to closely monitor the post-marketing safety data on mifepristone for the medical termination of early pregnancy,” Makary wrote.

Makary noted that he is “committed to conducting a review of mifepristone and working with the professional career scientists at the agency who review this data.” 

The letter follows a pledge by U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert Kennedy Jr., who said in a hearing last month that he had instructed Makary to do a “complete review” of the abortion pill following a report showing that more than 1 in 10 women experience adverse side effects from chemical abortions.   

The first-of-its-kind study, published by the Ethics and Public Policy Center on April 28, delved into public health insurance records, finding that about 11% of women suffer at least one “serious adverse event” within 45 days of taking mifepristone for an abortion.

Of 865,727 patients between 2017 and 2023, the study found that more than 4.7% were forced to visit an emergency room related to the abortion, more than 3.3% suffered hemorrhaging, and more than 1.3% got an infection. 

Thousands were hospitalized, more than 1,000 needed blood transfusions, and hundreds suffered from sepsis. Nearly 2,000 had a different life-threatening adverse event.

Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of American and Students for Life Action, celebrated the confirmation of the review, saying: “It’s in writing.” 

“Time to review, reinstate basic safety protocols to save women, and pull from the market to save hundreds of thousands of lives!” she said in a post on X.

Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America’s Director of Legal Affairs and Policy Counsel Katie Glenn Daniel celebrated the confirmation, sharing her gratitude “for Sen. Hawley’s leadership to secure the FDA’s commitment to fully review the safety of abortion drugs.” 

“We’re encouraged to see the FDA reexamine the data under new leadership after the Biden administration recklessly fueled an unregulated drug market by stripping away in-person dispensing requirements,” Glenn Daniel told CNA. 

Glenn Daniel highlighted a recent peer-reviewed study by the Charlotte Lozier Institute that challenged the abortion industry’s claim that medication abortion is “safer than Tylenol.”

“While the abortion industry and Democrat politicians push the debunked claim that these drugs are ‘safer than Tylenol,’ growing evidence shows they’re far more dangerous than advertised,” she said.  

The Charlotte Lozier Institute published its peer-reviewed article in the journal BioTech challenging the “heavily relied upon talking point” for the abortion industry that abortion drugs are safer than Tylenol.

“Even in the corporate media, reports have surfaced of at least three women dying in recent years after drug-induced abortions,” Glenn Daniel added.

A young woman from Georgia named Amber Thurman died at age 28 in 2022 after being hospitalized due to an infection after she took abortion pills. Tissue from her deceased babies — unborn twins — had remained in her uterus, causing an infection. When she went to the emergency room, the doctors failed to quickly operate on her, and she died.

While some news outlets blamed the state’s protections for unborn children, doctors with the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists maintained that side effects from the abortion pill and medical malpractice caused her death.

Notably, all pro-life states permit abortions in life-threatening cases and allow doctors to treat women with pregnancy emergencies according to their medical judgment, according to the Charlotte Lozier Institute. 

A chemical abortion takes place via a two-pill regimen. The first pill, mifepristone, kills an unborn child by blocking the hormone progesterone, cutting off the child’s supply of oxygen and nutrients. The second pill, misoprostol, is taken between 24 to 48 hours after mifepristone to induce contractions and expel the child’s body. 

Chemical abortions account for about half of the abortions in the United States every year. Progesterone, a naturally occurring hormone, can be used to reverse the effects of mifepristone if taken soon after.

“We know the abortion pill starves babies to death. We know 11% of women experience complications from the use of this pill,” Live Action said last week. “The question is how [is] this poison pill is still on the market?”

Pope Leo XIV smiles at the crowds at St. Peter’s Square on Sunday, June 1, 2025, gathered for the Jubilee of Families, Children, Grandparents, and the Elderly. / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA

CNA Newsroom, Jun 3, 2025 / 12:33 pm (CNA).

Follow our live coverage of the pontificate of Pope Leo XIV, first U.S.-born pope in history.

Pope Leo XIV greets the faithful in St. Peter's Basilica, May 31, 2025. / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA

CNA Staff, Jun 3, 2025 / 11:59 am (CNA).

In his first prayer intention video of his papacy, Pope Leo XIV has asked the faithful to pray that the world might grow in compassion during the month of June.

“Let us pray that each one of us might find consolation in a personal relationship with Jesus, and from his heart, learn to have compassion on the world,” the pope said in a video released June 3.

The video also includes an original prayer to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, to which the month of June is dedicated. 

According to a press release, the international director of the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network, Jesuit Father Cristóbal Fones, explained that Pope Leo XIV’s prayer intention focuses on growing in compassion for the world through a personal relationship with Jesus.

“By cultivating this truly close relationship, our hearts are more conformed to his. We grow in love and mercy, and we better learn what compassion is,” Fones said. “Jesus manifested an unconditional love for everyone, especially for the poor, the sick, and those who were suffering. The pope encourages us to imitate this compassionate love by extending a hand to those in need.”

He added: “Compassion seeks to alleviate suffering and to promote human dignity. This is why it is translated into concrete actions that address the roots of poverty, inequality, and exclusion, so as to contribute to the construction of a more just and solidary world.”

Here is the full prayer to the Sacred Heart of Jesus:

Lord, I come to your tender heart today,
to you who have words that set my heart ablaze,
to you who pour out compassion on the little ones and the poor,
on those who suffer, and on all human miseries.

I desire to know you more, to contemplate you in the Gospel,
to be with you and learn from you
and from the charity with which you allowed yourself
to be touched by all forms of poverty.

You showed us the Father’s love by loving us without measure
with your divine and human heart.

Grant all your children the grace of encountering you.
Change, shape, and transform our plans,
so that we seek only you in every circumstance:
in prayer, in work, in encounters, and in our daily routine.

From this encounter, send us out on mission,
a mission of compassion for the world
in which you are the source from which all consolation flows.

Amen.

The video prayer intention is promoted by the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network, which raises awareness of monthly papal prayer intentions.

Professor Robert P. George speaks at the Heritage Foundation event commemorating the 100th anniversary of Pierce v. Society of Sisters on May 30, 2025. / Credit: Ronald Walters

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 3, 2025 / 11:01 am (CNA).

June 1 marked the 100th anniversary of Pierce v. Society of Sisters, the landmark Supreme Court case that preserved Catholic education in America and established the foundation for present-day legal discourse on parental rights and school choice.

Decided on June 1, 1925, Pierce v. Society of Sisters blocked a proposed amendment to an Oregon statute that would have eliminated the rights of parents to enroll their children in private schools. The amendment, challenged by the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, who ran parochial schools in Oregon, primarily targeted those schools and was notably backed by organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan.

The court’s natural-law based opinion, written by Associate Justice James Clark McReynolds, famously stated: “The child is not the mere creature of the state.”

“The natural law-rooted conception of the relationship between child and parent … is deeply rooted in our nation’s constitutional order,” preeminent legal scholar and moral philosopher Robert P. George said in a speech at a commemorative event sponsored by the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., last week.

“[Pierce v. Society of Sisters] illustrates the fight to protect and preserve parents’ fundamental rights to direct their children’s upbringing and education,” George said, which “is nothing new when it comes to the American story.”

In his address, George referred to a current case, Mahmoud v. Taylor, where Catholic, Orthodox, and Muslim parents are suing the Montgomery County, Maryland, Board of Education for not allowing them to opt their children out of course material that promotes homosexuality, transgenderism, and other elements of radical gender ideology.

The parents argue that the curriculum, which includes reading material for children as young as 3 and 4 years old, violates their First Amendment right to direct the religious upbringing of their children.

“It is in cases like Mahmoud,” George continued, “that we see the real reason that progressives are so keen for organized institutions of the state, at least when they are dominated by ideological allies of social and cultural progressivism, to share, and eventually override, as Montgomery County sought to do by banning the opt-outs, parental authority with actual parents.”

Ultimately, George said he believes the Supreme Court will side with parents in Mahmoud v. Taylor “because the United States has a long tradition of articulating and upholding the natural law account of parental rights within our constitutional order,” as illustrated in the precedent set by Pierce.

“As we confront the challenges of today, fights such as that against Montgomery County’s LGBTQ indoctrination efforts, we must be courageous defenders of the truth about the rights parents legitimately maintain and exercise over their children,” George said. “These are not rights conferred by any merely human authority … They are natural rights.”

The Heritage Foundation event, titled “Pierce at 100: The Legacy of Pierce v. Society of Sisters,” also included panel discussions on legal issues regarding parental rights and school choice as well as on the state of private education. The panels featured legal experts including Eric Baxter, vice president and senior counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, who argued on the parents’ behalf in the Mahmoud case. A decision is expected in late June or early July.

“Interestingly,” Baxter pointed out during the panel discussion, “Pierce arose in a period of high Catholic immigration,” when the Ku Klux Klan pushed for legislation to make Catholic immigrants “uniform.”

“You have that very same dynamic here,” he said, noting that many of the parents in the Mahmoud case are immigrants who came to the U.S. seeking freedom of religion, only to be “told that [they] have to adopt this very extreme view [of transgender ideology] in the United States.”

Bern, Switzerland. / Credit: SCStock/Shutterstock

CNA Deutsch, Jun 3, 2025 / 10:16 am (CNA).

In a landmark decision, the Swiss Catholic Women’s Federation (SKF) — the largest denominational women’s organization in the country with 100,000 members — has voted to remove the word “Catholic” from its name. The group will now operate as the Women’s Federation Switzerland, accompanied by the tagline “Surprisingly Different Catholic.”

Originally founded a century ago, the organization was established to preserve Catholic life in families, communities, and the state. It was also established as an alternative to the predominantly Protestant Swiss Federation of Women’s Associations.

As reported by CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner, the name change is driven by concerns regarding the public image of the term “Catholic.”

“As a Catholic umbrella organization, we consciously and repeatedly adopt positions different from those of the official Church,” Simone Curau-Aepli, the federation’s president, said of the change.

One concrete example of this is the SKF’s stance on homosexuality. Since 2001, the SKF board has advocated opening civil and ecclesiastical marriages to same-sex couples.

Manuela Winteler, head of the Bazenheid Women’s Community, maintained that “to save the ‘catholic’ in its original sense and the goals and values of the federation,” the word “Catholic” must disappear from the name.

She referred to the etymological meaning of “catholic,” which comes from Greek and means “all-embracing, total, universal.” This, she explained, signifies that the Church was “sent to all people,” not just to “members of the Roman Catholic denomination.”

The reasoning behind the name change drew criticism from Catholic organizations. Both the Cooperation Council of the Swiss Bishops’ Conference (SBK) and the Roman Catholic Central Conference (RKZ) expressed regret about the requested name change. It remains to be seen whether the move will also have financial consequences. The SBK receives around 7% of its funding from the RKZ.

The move by the SKF raises questions about whether similar decisions to “rebrand” will be made by Catholic women’s organizations in neighboring Germany and Austria. However, an analysis of current discussions suggests that the major Catholic women’s associations in both countries intend to maintain their religious name despite undergoing reflection processes.

German associations currently reject name change

The two largest Catholic womens’ organizations in Germany have ruled out renaming themselves in the manner of the Swiss. With approximately 265,000 members, the Catholic Women’s Community of Germany (Katholische Frauengemeinschaft Deutschlands, KFD) and with about 145,000 members, the Catholic German Women’s League (Katholischer Deutscher Frauenbund, KDFB), currently see no reason to remove “Catholic” from their names.

Agnes Wuckelt, deputy federal chairwoman of the KFD, stated that removing the “K” from the association’s name is not an issue at the federal level. Despite similar experiences to the SKF, the KFD is “proactively addressing” this by advocating strongly for women’s issues within the Catholic Church, she said.

The KDFB, however, described the name change of the Swiss women as an “understandable strategic decision,” without announcing any plans to rename their organization.

Instead, both associations instead are focusing on redefining what “Catholic” should mean in their context.

The KFD has expressed this intention for several years with the concept of “differently Catholic.” Birgit Kainz, KDFB regional chairwoman, explained: “We in the KDFB call ourselves ‘Catholic’ but understand ourselves not just as a Roman Catholic but as a Christian association.”

Austrian situation remains unchanged

With around 170,000 members, the Catholic Women’s Movement of Austria (Katholische Frauenbewegung Österreichs, KFB) has not yet made any efforts to change its confessional designation. Unlike the German associations, there are no documented public discussions about a possible name change. 

The Austrian KFB is organized as a lay Church organization within the framework of Catholic Action, making it structurally more closely tied to Church hierarchies than its German sister organizations. This organizational integration may explain why discussions about abandoning “Catholic” in the name have not yet taken place publicly.

Pope Leo XIV addresses 159 cyclists before they take a noncompetitive ride around Vatican City on the day of the last leg of the international Giro d’Italia multistage bicycle race on June 1, 2025. / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/EWTN News/Vatican Pool

Vatican City, Jun 3, 2025 / 09:00 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV on Sunday blessed the cyclists of the Giro d’Italia before the last leg of the multistage international race, telling them they are all welcome in the Catholic Church.

Addressing the 159 cyclists in a square just inside Vatican City, the pope said in English: “May God bless all of you on this last part of the Giro d’Italia. Congratulations to all of you, and may you know that you are always welcome here in the Vatican, you are always welcomed by the Church, which represents God’s love for all people.”

In a short address in Italian, Leo praised cycling as an important sport, reminding the world-class athletes that they are models for many young people.

“And I hope that, just as you have learned to care for the body, the spirit too is always blessed, and that you are always attentive to the human being as a whole: body, mind, and spirit,” he added.

The professional race, which started in Albania on May 9, is among the top three most important international multistage races in the world, together with the Tour de France and the Vuelta a Espana. It includes 21 stages, mostly in Italy.

The last leg of the 108th edition of the race took place on June 1, starting from the Caracalla Baths, just south of the Coliseum, and proceeding toward the Vatican.

The 1.8-mile noncompetitive ride through the Vatican started from the Petriano Square, just south of St. Peter’s Basilica inside the city state, where Pope Leo XIV greeted the athletes at the starting line.  

The cyclists then followed the Vatican walls past the basilica to climb toward the Vatican Gardens and arrive at the heliport, the highest, westernmost point of the territory.

The racers then pedaled through a green space dotted with Marian images, including a replica of the Lourdes grotto and a mosaic of Our Lady of Good Counsel — a favorite devotion of Pope Leo. 

After descending toward the Vatican Museums and the “Square Garden,” the cyclists doubled back along the rear of St. Peter’s Basilica to exit out a side gate on the south side of Vatican City.