New Catholic scouting patch honors Pope Leo XIV

(OSV News) -- Catholic scouts have several new achievements to aim for, including a Pope Leo XIV patch.

The Religious Activities Committee of the National Catholic Committee on Scouting has announced five new religious activity programs, which enable scouts to learn more about and deepen their faith.

The new activities, unveiled by the committee in a July 13 Facebook post, include the Pope Leo XIV patch, part of the NCCS's Faith Series.

The requirements for the patch will offer the chance to learn more about "our first American born Pope," said the NCCS in its post. "In addition, they will learn what the papacy means and its history."

The patch, an image of which the NCCS included in its post, depicts Pope Leo wearing a stole and the papal mozzetta, or cape, as he did when he first appeared on St. Peter's Basilica's balcony after his election May 8. Framing the figure are the words "Pope -- Vicar of Christ," with the date of his election "ghost stitched" -- or stitched in a color blending into the lavender background. The NCCS noted that the original version "will only be available for a year and then changed to remove the 'ghost' stitching."

The patch also features gold stitching of the two key elements of the NCCS logo -- a crozier, the staff symbolizing a bishop's authority, and the fleur-de-lis, the central element of the BSA's crest and a longtime symbol of purity.

The NCCS is officially related to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, led by the USCCB's Secretariat on Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth. It also serves as an advisory committee to Scouting America (formerly known as the Boy Scouts of America).

The NCCS also partners with the National Federation for Catholic Youth Ministry and other Catholic organizations to "provide faithful and useful Church-sanctioned programming and guidance to Catholic Scouting units," according to the NCCS website.

Along with the Pope Leo patch, NCCS has also announced a new activity series on Religious Trails, designed to spark pilgrimages "to the important religious sites in our country."

Four sites in Washington have so far been designated for the patch: the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, the St. John Paul II National Shrine, The Catholic University of America and the Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Land in America.

In addition, the NCCS has added two new activities to its American Saints series, which now includes just under 20 men and women, spanning the various stages of the canonization cause process, who lived and served in the U.S.

The latest additions include Catholic army chaplain Venerable Emil Kapaun, whose heroic offering of life during the Korean War was recognized by Pope Francis, and Venerable Augustus Tolton, the first recognized U.S. Black Catholic priest, born into slavery in 1854 and -- following his 1886 ordination in Rome -- a pastor in Quincy, Illinois, and later Chicago.

In its International series, the NCCS has also issued a new "Be Not Afraid" patch, named for St. John Paul II's repeated exhortation, notably stressed in his Oct. 22, 1978, homily at his papal inauguration, to exchange fear for a total surrender to Christ.

The NCCS noted that the phrase forms the theme for the 2027 World Scout Jamboree in Poland. Patch activities will focus on three modern saints from that nation -- St. John Paul II and two saints he canonized: St. Maximilian Kolbe, the Franciscan priest who offered his life for a fellow Auschwitz prisoner and was ultimately killed by lethal injection, and St. Faustina Kowalska, the Polish religious sister and mystic to whom Christ revealed the Divine Mercy devotion. The limited edition patch will be available until 2028.