Hello, I'm Maggie Murray of OSV News, and this is your OSV Newscast for Tuesday, June 2nd, 2026. Let's catch you up on the Catholic News of the Day. Here we go. In some big news for Catholic media this morning, Pope Leo XIV has named Monse Alvarado, president and COO of EWTN News, as prefect of the Vatican's Dicastery for Communications. She will assume the role on November 1st. Alvarado, a Mexican-American Catholic who grew up in Miami, will be the first laywoman who is not a religious sister to lead a dicastery, and at age 39, will be by far the youngest prefect currently in the Roman Curia. She succeeds Paolo Rufini, whom Pope Francis appointed in 2018. Alvarado's career spans religious liberty law. She spent years at the Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty before transitioning to Catholic media, and she was named president and COO of EWTN News in 2023. Pope Francis established the Vatican Dicastery for Communication in 2015 as part of his reform of the Rowan Curia. The Dicastery oversees the Holy See's communication systems, including Vatican News, Vatican Radio, Vatican Media, the Holy See Press Office, the Vatican Publishing House, the Vatican Printing Press, and the Filmoteca Vaticana. Alvarado responded to the news with characteristic humility. While this appointment was unexpected, she said, I receive it with a sincere desire to serve the Holy Father as he begins his pontificate. Pope Leo XIV's acknowledgement of the Catholic Church's role in slavery is drawing a powerful response from black Catholic leaders and a call to move from apology to action. Bishop Roy Campbell, president of the National Black Catholic Congress, called the apology included in the Pope's first encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, both proper and just. The Knights of Peter Claver, one of the Catholic Church's largest historically black lay fraternal organizations, also endorsed the apology. Bishop Campbell, who recently retired as auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Washington, said the Pope is taking the initiative to admit that the Church was complicit by either allowing slavery or looking the other way. But recognition, he emphasized, is just the beginning. Once you recognize the wrong and you're sorry for the wrong, Bishop Campbell said, the question becomes, now what do we do to correct it? He pointed to concrete steps, including identifying and honoring the graves of enslaved persons, and grounded the path in a simple truth. We're all one in Christ. With the FIFA World Cup kicking off this month, Pope Leo is inviting the world to see sport through a different lens, as a school of fraternity, not rivalry. In the Vatican's June, Pray with the Pope video released today, the Pope dedicated his monthly prayer intention to the power of sport, to build bridges between cultures and nations. He prayed that sport may always be a school of fraternity, not of empty rivalry, a space of encounter, not exclusion, a path of peace, not violence. The timing is fitting. The Pope's home country of the United States begins co-hosting the World Cup on June 11th alongside Mexico and Canada, with a record 48 national teams competing across 104 matches through July 19th. The Pope has shown a personal connection to the world of athletics. In April, he welcomed Italian Olympic and Paralympic athletes from the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Games to the Vatican. His full June intention calls for sport to be an instrument of peace, encounter, and dialogue between cultures and peoples. On June 20th, the Pope is scheduled to stop to venerate a relic of St. Francis Xavier Cabrini, known as Mother Cabrini, whose heart will be temporarily housed there specifically for his visit. Those close to the Pope say they aren't aware of a particular personal devotion to Cabrini, but they're equally clear the two share something deeper, a profound compassion for migrants and refugees. Augustinian father John Leiden told OSV News that Mother Cabrini, as the patroness of immigrants, represents the Church's embrace of those on the move. I don't know if there's a particular devotion to her as a saint, Father Leiden said. But she represents, for the church, the church's embrace of immigrants. For Pope Leo, the first American Pope, that shared mission speaks louder than formal devotion. As the United States marks its 250th anniversary, the nation's Catholic bishops are offering a resource that honors the full, complicated story of how this country came to be. The USCCB has released a 15-page prayer service titled A Path Toward Justice, a national prayer service honoring the many journeys that shaped America, now available in English and Spanish at USCCB.org. Prepared by the USCCB's Committee on Migration and its Subcommittee for the Promotion of Racial Justice and Reconciliation, the service honors immigrants, refugees, and those forcibly brought to this country through slavery, both historically and in modern forms of trafficking. The document also includes prayers for government officials, asking God to help them understand the great dignity of human persons. Structured as a liturgy of the word, complete with hymns, scripture readings, and a responsorial psalm, the service closes with a call to action, inviting the faithful to assist immigrants and refugees in concrete ways, while advocating for just and humane immigration reform that upholds the dignity of every human person. And that's your OSV Newscast for today. I'm Maggie Murray of OSV News. Check out the show notes for direct links to the stories in this episode. Make sure to subscribe to this podcast, follow us on social media, and bookmark osvnews.com. Thanks so much for listening and God bless. This has been an OSV News production. To learn more, visit osvnews.com.