The pontiff spoke to reporters for the first time since Dec. 23.

The group urged new oversight and formation for online evangelization.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- When millions of visitors flock to the Sistine Chapel each year, their seemingly invisible breath and sweat are slowly leaving a mark on this Renaissance masterpiece, according to Vatican Museums officials.

After 30 years since the chapel's last big renovation, the director of the Vatican Museums, Barbara Jatta, said the impact of five to six million visitors a year has created a white film over different surfaces in the chapel. The largest damage was found on Michelangelo's famous fresco of the Last Judgment.

She said the increased accumulation of residue from human sweat and breath on the artwork may be linked to climate change, as Italy has experienced warmer temperatures in recent years. 

"Every day, we check the Sistine Chapel, but last year, we realized that there is a layer of salt," she told the press invited to the chapel Feb. 28. "It's something that probably is due to the presence of the people, even if we have a very sophisticated climate system" meant to mitigate their impact.

Spread across the entire back wall, greeting visitors as they walk into the chapel, Michelangelo's Last Judgment depicts the second coming of Christ at the moment before delivering his final verdict, surrounded by saints and angels as the blessed rise to heaven and the damned are dragged to hell. 

Jatta said the film is "nothing too serious" and the work is a simple maintenance project. Restorers have been gently brushing deionized water over layers of Japanese paper pressed against the fresco, preserving the underlying pigment while gradually removing the calcium lactate film. 

Every January and February, the museum carries out minor patch repairs on the fresco surrounding the chapel, including removing the whitish film from certain sections, Jatta said. Most of the time, this maintenance can be done quickly with mobile scaffolding. During previous inspections, calcium lactate was found in smaller spots, including on the so-called "Quattrocento paintings." These paintings by several Florentine artists were commissioned by Pope Sixtus IV for two side walls. 

This year, staff found the residue throughout the Last Judgment. Jatta said it was more effective to address the issue by setting up scaffolding rather than use multiple temporary setups. So Feb. 23, the Vatican Museums erected scaffolding concealed by a full-scale image of the Last Judgment fresco on a screen, allowing visitors to continue touring the Sistine Chapel as staff work to delicately remove the residue from the artwork and refresh the mural. 

The scaffolding and screen are expected to remain in place until Holy Week, Jatta said. 

In order to preserve the artwork, Jatta said they have already reduced the number of visitors allowed in the chapel at any one time and extended museum hours. Museum officials plan to add climate control to the upper and lower galleries by the end of 2026 to reduce the effects of visitors' perspiration and breath, she said.

The maintenance work is meant to ensure the vibrancy of Michelangelo's iconic work remains visible to tourists. Staff performed some cleanings last year, "and we realized that it's much better," Jatta told reporters. 

"The colors and the incredible and magnificent fresco of Michelangelo will be back," she said.

Completed between 1536 and 1541, the Last Judgment was essentially painted only by  Michelangelo. Fabrizio Biferali, curator of the museums' department of 15th–16th century art, said the cleaning process has allowed them to uncover new technical details of his work. 

Speaking with reporters on the scaffolding, Biferali pointed to visible revisions in the fresco, explaining how the artist adjusted his figures directly on the wall. 

Biferali drew attention to what are called “pentimenti" or "changes of mind,” where Michelangelo repainted a figure after realizing “the foreshortening wasn’t perfectly effective from below.” Sometimes he even left areas of plain plaster exposed instead of adding a layer of pigment so that “the light plaster itself supplies the highlight.” 

The most recent major restoration of the Last Judgment was completed in 1994, removing a layer of smoke and wax buildup, the Vatican Museums said in a press release.

The Florida Chapter of the Patrons of the Arts in the Vatican Museums covered restoration costs, and Jatta said the museums are very grateful for their support over the years. 

Timothy Lisenbe and Diane Lisenbe, a couple visiting from the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, said that while it's not the full experience to see Michelangelo's work during the maintenance project, the Sistine Chapel remains a sight to behold. 

"I've been hearing about this since I was in grade school. Now I'm 64 years old, and it's still fresh on my mind what the teachers told us in school," he told Catholic News Service Feb. 28. "It's really something to see it in real life."

The Lisenbes said they understand that restorations are necessary. She said she also visited the Sistine Chapel during its first major modern-day restoration project and found it ironic that her second visit was again hampered by scaffolding. 

"That means we will have to come back," she said to her husband.

 

In an interview with EWTN News, Ambassador Brian Burch pushed back on widespread criticism of U.S. immigration enforcement and rejected the suggestion that the Vatican is anti-American.

The new statues introduce the new role of “supporters” who, while not academics, identify with the academy’s mission and “contribute to the advancement of its academic activities.”

WASHINGTON - On the weekend of March 14-15, Catholics in many dioceses across the United States will be asked to help some of the most poor and vulnerable people. The U.S. bishops’ annual Catholic Relief Services Collection helps those in need in the United States and worldwide by benefiting six agencies and offices affiliated with the Catholic Church, including the U.S. bishops’ flagship international relief and development agency, Catholic Relief Services. Gifts are also accepted online at https://www.igivecatholic.org/story/USCCB-CRS.

“The Church in the United States was built on ministry among immigrants. We help all who are marginalized, including victims of war and disaster overseas. The Catholic Relief Services Collection combines all these kinds of assistance,” said Bishop Daniel H. Mueggenborg of Reno, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Committee on National Collections. “Our Lord tells us to love our neighbors – those we know, those we don’t and those we think are very different from us. The Catholic Relief Services Collection is one way that we show that love. Today it is more vital than ever.”

Of nearly $13.5 million distributed from The Catholic Relief Services Collection in 2024, nearly $8 million went to Catholic Relief Services for international relief and development efforts in places affected by war and natural disaster.

The other recipients are:

• The Catholic Legal Immigration Network (CLINIC): Provides training and support to a dedicated network of more than 400 Catholic and community-based immigration law providers in 49 states.
• USCCB Secretariat of Migration (formerly the Department of Migration and Refugee Services): Assists dioceses in carrying out their ministries to newcomers, publishes educational resources, and promotes policies that affirm the life and dignity of immigrants and refugees.
• Two initiatives of the USCCB Secretariat of Cultural Diversity in the Church: pastoral ministries to migrant workers, travelers, and seafarers through its Subcommittee on the Pastoral Care of Migrants, Refugees, and Travelers, and its Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Island Affairs, which helps the Church address the unique pastoral needs across many boundaries of language and tradition.
• USCCB Secretariat of Justice and Peace: Engages in advocacy on behalf of the poor around the world and works with policymakers and government officials to end violent international conflicts through its International Justice and Peace program.
• Holy Father’s Relief Fund: Helps Pope Leo XIV rush aid to areas of the world in crisis.

“Together, these agencies help victims of war and natural disaster, support sustainable economic development overseas, advocate for international peace and human rights, help refugees and immigrants in the United States to obtain legal support, offer pastoral support to a wide variety of people who migrate for work and build cross-cultural understanding,” Bishop Mueggenborg said.

For more information on The Catholic Relief Services Collection please visit www.usccb.org/catholic-relief.

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Visiting a parish in Rome, the pope preached on the Transfiguration and Abraham’s journey of faith.

ROME (CNS) -- Life is a journey that requires trust and reliance on Jesus, who sometimes asks his disciples to leave everything behind, Pope Leo XIV said.

While it may be tempting to flee from the uncertainty of heading into the unknown, it is precisely in this "dizzying vertigo" that people of faith will find God's promise of unexpected greatness, he said in a homily during a Mass celebrated at a small parish in Rome March 1.

While it is normal to try to have everything under control, he said, "we miss the opportunity to discover the true treasure, the precious pearl, as the Gospel teaches us, which God has surprisingly hidden in our field."

Pope Leo was visiting the Church of the Ascension of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the working-class neighborhood of Quarticciolo for the second Sunday of Lent as part of a series of parish visits in the run-up to Easter. 

The neighborhood has experienced an increase in crime and drug-dealing. The church and local community, however, have been active in building initiatives to create job opportunities and strengthen essential services and solidarity. 

"You are signs of hope," he told the parishioners in his homily.

Faced with so many complex problems, he said, "you are entrusted with the pedagogy of the gaze of faith, which transfigures everything with hope, putting passion, sharing and creativity into circulation as a cure for the many wounds of this neighborhood."

It is easy to become discouraged and doubt efforts make any sense when so many things are not right in the world, he said. "Instead, it is precisely in the face of the mystery of evil that we must bear witness to our identity as Christians, as people who want to make the Kingdom of God perceptible in the places and times in which we live."

Life, he said, "is a journey that requires trust; it requires reliance on the Word of God, who calls us and sometimes asks us to leave everything behind."

For example, he said, Abraham's journey began with the loss of his homeland, but he was led to a new land with many descendants and "where everything becomes a blessing."

"If we allow ourselves to be called by faith to walk the path, to risk new decisions in life and love, we, too, will cease to fear losing something, because we will feel ourselves growing in a wealth that no one can steal," the pope said. 

Another example, he said, is Jesus' "Eucharistic gesture," that is, his willingness to offer his body as bread to eat and to live and die to give life.

In fact, Sunday is a chance to take a moment during the journey to gather together around Jesus, who "encourages us not to stop and not to change direction" and to know there is "no more precious treasure than to live in order to give life!"

"Listen to Jesus!" Pope Leo said. "He travels with us, even today, to teach us in this city the logic of unconditional love, of abandoning every defense that becomes an offense."

"Let us enter into his light to become light of the world, beginning with the neighborhood where we live," he said, because "the whole life of the parish and its groups exists for this: it is a service to light, a service to joy." 

Pope Leo is the third pope -- after St. John XXIII in 1963 and St. John Paul II in 1980 -- to visit the church, which is overseen by the Congregation of the Priests of the Sacred Heart, also known as the Dehonians.

During the late afternoon visit, the pope met with children and young people active in the Jesuits' MAGIS program. The young adults gave the pope a soccer ball and the black and gold jersey of their local soccer team, the Lions.

The pope also met with vulnerable members of the community, including the elderly, the ill and parents whose children's drug addictions led them to incarceration. He also spoke with members of the parish's pastoral council and priests.

WASHINGTON - As reports emerge regarding the escalation of hostilities in the Middle East, Archbishop Paul S. Coakley, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, urgently called upon the United States, Iran, and the broader international community to return to dialogue and pursue every avenue toward a just and lasting peace.

Echoing the heartfelt appeal of Pope Leo XIV to halt the spiral of violence before it becomes “an unbridgeable chasm,” Archbishop Coakley emphasized the critical need for restraint and for all parties to take concrete steps to end the conflict, work for peace and protect innocent lives. His full statement follows:

“The growing conflict risks spiraling into a wider regional war. As the Holy Father has warned, we are faced with the possibility of a tragedy of immense proportions. My brother bishops and I unite our voice with our Holy Father and make the heartfelt appeal to all parties involved for diplomacy to regain its proper role. We ask for a halt to the spiral of violence, and a return to multilateral diplomatic engagement that seeks to uphold the ‘well-being of peoples, who yearn for peaceful existence founded on justice.’ All nations, international bodies, and partners committed to peace must exert every effort to prevent further escalation.

“At this critical moment, I invite Catholics and all people of goodwill to continue our ardent prayers for peace in the Middle East, for the safety of our troops and the innocent, that leaders may seek dialogue over destruction, and pursue the common good over the tragedy of war. We implore the intercession of our Blessed Mother, Mary, Queen of Peace, to pray for our troubled world and for a lasting peace.”

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The pontiff warned that “stability and peace are not built with mutual threats” and appealed for dialogue to avert a wider crisis.