OSV News asked George Weigel — the American biographer of the pope from Poland, St. John Paul II — about what the first few days of papacy tell us about Pope Leo XIV, how as an American missionary he can influence the world and about his own hopes for the papacy.

With a huge and festive crowd gathered in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Leo XIV led his first Sunday recitation of the “Regina Coeli” prayer and urged all Catholics to pray for vocations, especially to the priesthood and religious life.

The Catholic community is alive, beautiful and strong, and it is up to its pastors to protect and nourish the faithful and to help bring God’s hope to the whole world, Pope Leo XIV said.

Before the College of Cardinals elected U.S.-born Cardinal Robert Prevost as the next supreme pontiff May 8, students across Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Baltimore were holding their own mock conclaves – complete with rituals, research and reverence.

On May 11, Archbishop François Fonlupt and neighboring bishops will mark the 100th anniversary of the beatification of the Martyrs of Orange — 32 religious sisters guillotined during the French Revolution for refusing to renounce their faith.