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Vatican Adds US Educator to Commission to Preserve Historical Truth
Confirmed
In Short: Pope Leo XIV has appointed Francesco Cesareo, an American Catholic educator, to the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences, a key Vatican commission focused on preserving historical truth.
Cesareo, who is currently an adjunct professor of history at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary and Villanova University, Pope Leo’s alma mater, will support the commission’s efforts to safeguard and share historical truth.
The commission, according to Cesareo, aims to preserve and nurture historical truth and pass it on to the next generation, ensuring that it is not distorted by ideological perspectives.
Cesareo’s appointment highlights the Vatican’s ongoing efforts to address the challenges posed by the intersection of history, technology, and politics, particularly in the context of the 21st century.
The commission’s work is also aligned with the Church’s mission to navigate history in a way that answers fundamental questions and prevents humanity from becoming alienated.
In addition to his academic roles, Cesareo has extensive experience studying at the Vatican and in universities in Rome, making him well-suited for his new role.
The Vatican’s General Secretariat of the Synod has also released a document calling for the creation of a new interdicasterial body to evaluate bishops’ ad limina visits, further emphasizing the Church’s commitment to historical and doctrinal integrity.
Pope Leo XIV’s appointment of Cesareo underscores the Vatican’s dedication to preserving and communicating historical truth in an increasingly complex world.
What this adds
The appointment of Cesareo as the sole American on the Vatican committee highlights the international scope of the commission’s work.
The Vatican’s efforts to preserve historical truth are part of a broader initiative to ensure the Church’s teachings remain relevant and accurate in the face of modern challenges.
What's confirmed
- PHILADELPHIA (OSV News) — Pope Leo XIV has added one of America’s leading Catholic educators with expertise in the connection between history and the faith to a key pontifical commission at the Vatican focused on preserving truth, at a time when the Holy Father is warning of how a failure to accurately understand history could lead to a politically and technologically more dangerous future for the world.
- Philadelphia-based Francesco Cesareo, whose appointment was announced Aug. 25, is one of the newest members of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences.
- “It’s very much a research-oriented commission that helps to advise the Holy Father and the Curia when it comes to questions of historical importance,” said Cesareo who is currently an adjunct professor of history at both St. Charles Borromeo Seminary and Villanova University, Pope Leo’s alma mater.
- “The work of the commission is to preserve and to nurture historical truth and then to pass it on to the next generation,” he told OSV News.
- It came from what the committee called “perspective radically renewed by the progress made in the historical sciences” since the war, which was replete with political propaganda and ideology-based information control that often disguised horrific truths about the actions of the war’s combatants.
- “Catholic social doctrine is basically a theology of history in terms of how the Church navigates, not in isolation, but navigates by journeying through a particular time and a particular moment so that the Gospel becomes the means by which we can answer the fundamental questions so that humanity is not alienated,” Father Dailey said.
- “That’s one of the goals of the commission,” said Cesareo, “to ensure that historical truth is accessible and is communicated and not distorted by whatever ideological perspective one may have.” Cesareo is the sole American on the Vatican committee as of Sept.
- His educational background has included numerous roles of study at the Vatican and in universities in Rome.
- The Vatican published a papal decree repealing 2021 salary cuts that Pope Francis had imposed on many Vatican employees as part of the Holy See’s COVID-19 cost-saving measures.
- Pope Leo XIV, left, looks at the installation "Diluvium" by French artist Jean Rene, known as JR, as he arrives at the Vatican Library, Monday, Sept.
- Pope Leo XIV, center, waves as he arrives with Bishop Giacomo Cardinali, vice prefect of the Vatican Library, fifth from left, Prefect of the Papal Household, Archbishop Petar Rajič, first at left, and President of the Pontifical Commission and Governorate of Vatican City State sister Raffaella Petrini, second from right, at the Vatican Library, Monday, Sept.
- The conference, organised by the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, discussed the ecumenical initiative “Commission for New Martyrs — Witnesses of the Faith” established by Pope Francis in 2023 to document the deaths of Christians of all denominations who have been killed for their faith since 2000.
What's still developing
- Cesareo’s new role at the pontifical commission involves supporting and enacting ways of safeguarding and sharing truth and fact, and their relationship with the Catholic faith.
- The document calls for the creation of a new interdicasterial body at the Vatican under the coordination of the Prefecture of the Papal Household, which oversees the pope’s daily schedule.
- The text also calls for an overhaul of the Vatican questionnaire, so that it focuses less on statistics, is better tailored to each local Church, and gives more space for bishops to say what they expect from an ad limina visit.
- “The Ad Limina Visits in a Missionary Synodal Perspective” is the second text prepared by Study Group 7, one of 10 groups established by Pope Francis in 2024 after the synod on synodality’s first session at the Vatican.
- Other members of the group included Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, before his election as Pope Leo XIV, Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, Cardinal Mario Grech, Cardinal Claudio Gugerotti, and Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, the synod on synodality’s relator general.
- The final reports of the 10 study groups are defined as “working documents.” When a group submits its final report to the General Secretariat of the Synod, it has completed its mandate and is dissolved.
- Vatican officials will go through each of the final reports, looking for “operative proposals” that will be presented to Leo XIV, who will decide whether they should be enacted.
- Bishops are expected to prepare reports on their dioceses ahead of the visits, with the help of a Vatican questionnaire.
- September 16, 2026 By Caroline de Sury OSV News Filed Under: Feature, News, Vatican, World News PARIS (OSV News) — With a little over a week left in France to welcome Pope Leo XIV, the country’s Catholics hope for a “breath” of “new life” into their Church from the pope.
- The pontiff held a private audience at the Vatican on September 16 with participants in the conference The 21st Century: A New Time of Martyrs?
- Historian Andrea Riccardi, vice-president of the Commission, said that the 21st century is marked by martyrdom.
- The Vatican said that it has documented 304 martyrs in South America so far this century.