In a political wasteland dominated by billionaires, war criminals and mega-corporations, the head of the Catholic church is a rare figure of moral leadership

What do Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu have in common? Answer: a chronic inability to tell right from wrong. The three leaders currently causing the most harm in the world share a predilection for violence, a chilling lack of compassion, and extraordinary self-regard mixed with paranoia. Yet the characteristic linking them most closely is their rejection of – or failure to grasp – basic moral standards. Worse, these men typically behave, in their public lives at least, in ways that are fundamentally immoral. And that’s a problem for everyone. Their moral malaise is contagious.

Ideas about what, in absolute terms, constitutes right and wrong are always contentious, as moral philosophers from Aristotle to Kant have shown. Pope Leo, leader of the world’s Catholics, warned recently that “we are living in a time when it is becoming difficult even to recognise what is truly good for everyone”. Yet most people, most of the time, observe a personal moral code held in common with others. There is broad agreement, for example, that it’s wrong to kill, steal, cheat and lie. In an ostensibly secular age, 76% of people worldwide identified with a religion in 2020 – a potent expression of individual and collective morality.

Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator

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Schism caused by Society of Saint Pius X ordaining four bishops without consent presents first crisis for Pope Leo

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The Vatican has excommunicated a rebel group of ultra-conservative Catholics who defied Pope Leo by ordaining bishops without his consent, creating a schism in the Roman Catholic church.

In a statement on Thursday, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, who heads the Holy See’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, said the group from the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), founded in the Swiss village of Écône in 1970, had “committed an act of a schismatic nature” which, under canon law, was punishable with automatic excommunication.

Consecrations by Society of Saint Pius X bring automatic excommunication for bishops – and crisis for Pope Leo

A rebel group of ultra-conservative Catholics has defied Pope Leo by ordaining bishops without his consent, which they declared a “sacred duty” despite it causing their automatic excommunication.

In a ritual-filled ceremony on Wednesday, streamed live from the Swiss village of Ecône, the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) went ahead with the consecrations of four bishops, one from Switzerland, one from France and two from the US.

Pontiff warns that defiance by Society of Saint Pius X would be ‘schismatic act’

Pope Leo has made a last-ditch attempt to persuade a rebel group of ultra-conservative Catholics to abandon plans to ordain its own bishops without Vatican approval, calling the “schismatic act” a “sin of extreme gravity”.

The Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), founded in the Swiss village of Ecône in 1970 to oppose liberalising reforms in the Catholic church, plans to ordain four new bishops at its seminary there on Wednesday.

Freedom Under Grace will feature previously unpublished homilies and addresses from 2001 to 2013, letting readers ‘observe the development of Prevost’s thinking’

Robert Prevost – now Pope Leo XIV – is set to publish a collection of his writings from the 2000s in English later this year.

Freedom Under Grace: Reflections on the Spiritual Tradition That Formed Me will be released in September, featuring unpublished homilies and addresses from Prevost’s time as prior general of the Order of Saint Augustine between 2001 and 2013.

Conflict threatens to worsen mounting tensions between the Vatican and rightwing Catholics in the US and globally

A far-right Catholic sect’s plan to ordain its own bishops on the first day of July has placed it on a collision course with the Vatican – posing a possible crisis for Pope Leo a little over a year into his papacy, and straining the Roman Catholic church’s already fraught relationship with rightwing and traditionalist Catholics in the US and elsewhere.

Founded in Switzerland in 1970 to oppose liberalizing reforms in the Catholic church, the Society of St Pius X (SSPX) has gained significant followings in the US, France, Argentina and other countries. The order, which has a large base of operations in Kansas, claims that more than half a million people worldwide attend its masses, though these numbers are difficult to verify. It counts nearly 1,500 priests, seminarians and other vocational members among its members.

Pontiff calls on leaders to treat migrants more humanely as he concludes week-long Spanish tour in Gran Canaria

The constant flow of people embarking in small, rickety boats to migrate abroad should force a reckoning as to why we have built a world where so many “must risk death to seek life”, Pope Leo has said as he warned: “We cannot grow accustomed to counting the dead.”

Thursday’s speech in the Canary Islands, on the final leg of the pontiff’s week-long tour of Spain, contained Leo’s most pointed comments to date on migration.

Fireworks and a light show have illuminated the Sagrada Família in Barcelona after the pontiff inaugurated the newest of the building's geometric spires. The addition makes the basilica, which was originally designed by Antoni Gaudí, the world's tallest church

• Crowds turn out in Barcelona for pope blessing Sagrada Família’s final tower

As completion of 144-year basilica nears, questions swirl over resemblance of church to architect’s original plans

It has been a long wait but 144 years after work began, Pope Leo XIV has blessed the recently completed central tower of Antoni Gaudí’s Sagrada Família church in the presence of members of the Spanish royal family, the prime minister and hundreds of bishops.

With the completion of the Jesus Christ tower, the tallest of 18 in the temple, the basilica has reached its full height of 172.5 metres. It is now not only the world’s tallest church but Barcelona’s tallest building. It was consecrated in 2010 by Pope Benedict XVI.

Pontiff appeals in Catalan for harmony on Barcelona leg of Spain tour after making football foes in city

To the delight of many, Pope Leo XIV kicked off the Barcelona leg of his week-long visit to Spain with a few words in Catalan, calling on the faithful who had gathered in the city’s cathedral on Tuesday “to build harmony and communion beyond all polarisation”.

The pontiff’s familiar and commendable plea for people to set aside their differences may, however, have come a little late. Three days earlier, while chatting to journalists on the flight to Spain, Leo had made an awkward confession.

Addressing lawmakers, Leo XIV also highlights migration at a time when Madrid is bucking European trends

Pope Leo XIV has used an address to the Spanish parliament to warn the world is undergoing “a deep spiritual and cultural crisis” and to urge the international community to tackle the causes and consequences of what he termed “the tragic drama of migration”.

In a wide-ranging speech delivered to lawmakers in Madrid, the pontiff also touched on conflict, artificial intelligence, the climate emergency, and the issues of abortion and euthanasia.

Pontiff urges followers to dedicate themselves ‘to our brothers and sisters, to the poor, to those who suffer’

More than a million people filled the streets of Madrid to join Pope Leo in an open-air mass where the American pontiff appeared to emphasise the disconnect between Christian values and far-right politics, telling worshippers: “No one can kneel before the Lord and despise their brother.”

Queues to access the mass began forming hours before the sun rose on Sunday as people scrambled to secure a spot for what was billed as the biggest gathering of the pope’s week-long visit to Spain.

Pontiff to make marginalised a focus of first papal visit since 2011 including meeting with migrants in the Canaries

Pope Leo has urged political leaders to seek unity, rather than divide their populations for political gain, and said they must fight for peace, in the opening speech of his tour in Spain.

The pope has made the marginalised a focus of his visit – his first tour of an EU country, apart from Italy – including meeting homeless people in Madrid and migrants in the Canary Islands. The pope, who has clashed with the US president, Donald Trump, over his immigration policies and war with Iran, said his visit was aimed at setting an example of respecting “every human being”.

Pontiff’s resolve to highlight plight of migrants has aligned him with Spanish PM, whose inner circle and party are mired in corruption allegations

While Pope Leo XIV isn’t due to touch down in Madrid until 10.30am on Saturday, his presence in the Spanish capital is already verging on the ubiquitous.

The smiling, avuncular face of the first US pontiff greets visitors from posters, from the sides of buses, from commemorative travel cards and even from the digital screens on the metro system, where it flickers up between adverts for sun cream and banking deals.

Even for nonbelievers like me, the pope has become a reassuring – and all too rare – voice of moral clarity

Do you remember the early 2000s, when Silicon Valley buzzed with idealism and tech bros told us they were going to save the world? “Don’t be evil” was Google’s unofficial motto; its 2004 IPO prospectus declared that doing “good things for the world” was more important than “short term gains”. Mark Zuckerberg similarly wrote in Facebook’s 2012 IPO letter that the social network was “built to accomplish a social mission – to make the world more open and connected”.

As was obvious to anyone paying attention, this was all performative bullshit. Nevertheless, it’s hard not to feel nostalgic about that period of time – which came to a definitive end in 2018, with the Cambridge Analytica scandal. By and large, billionaires and CEOs still cared what the hoi polloi thought of them. They were self-aware enough to realize that, even with all their billions, there’s a lot more of us than there are of them.

Maria Montserrat Alvarado will lead communications department, overseeing news site, radio station, press office and more

Pope Leo has appointed the first lay woman to a top position in the governance of the Roman Catholic church.

Maria Montserrat Alvarado, who is now president of the US-based Catholic media outlet, EWTN News, will lead the Vatican’s powerful communications department, which was set up by the late Pope Francis in 2015 and oversees the Vatican’s news site as well as its radio station, newspaper, press office, publishing house and film library.

Experts say AI firm’s engagement with Vatican risks creating ‘feelgood’ discourse that lacks critical examination

Why did Anthropic’s founder sit beside the pope during a warning about AI?

In the first major written teaching of his papacy, Pope Leo XIV took artificial intelligence to task. The pontiff delineated the technology’s most concerning threats to humanity: replacing workers, accelerating war and exploiting the environment. At a ceremony honoring the holy teaching the day of its release at the Vatican, the pope was flanked by an unusual guest speaker: Anthropic co-founder Chris Olah, one of the people behind the AI boom so worrying Leo.