Overview
- On Nov. 2, 2025, Pope Leo XIV presided over the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed at Rome’s Campo Verano cemetery.
- In his homily he declared, “Love conquers death,” teaching that Christian memory is “hope for the future” rooted in Christ’s Paschal mystery.
- At the Angelus he urged that cemetery visits become quiet pauses that nurture remembrance and confident expectation of the resurrection.
- Before the liturgy he placed a bouquet of white roses on a family tomb as a symbolic tribute, with about 2,500 people attending the ceremony.
- After returning to the Vatican he prayed privately in St. Peter’s crypt for deceased popes, continuing a recent papal practice of cemetery liturgies and marking his first public cemetery Mass since his election.