{"id":15585,"date":"2025-11-21T18:01:19","date_gmt":"2025-11-22T01:01:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/pontifical-secret-pope-changes-his-wordle-start-word-each-day\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T19:34:27","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T19:34:27","slug":"pontifical-secret-pope-changes-his-wordle-start-word-each-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/pontifical-secret-pope-changes-his-wordle-start-word-each-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Pontifical secret: Pope changes his Wordle start word each day"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Pope
Pope Leo XIV arrives in St. Peter's Square on the occasion of the weekly general audience at the Vatican on Nov. 19. (Gregorio Borgia\/The Associated Press)<\/span>Gregorio Borgia<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

ROME \u2013 Pope Leo XIV opened a virtual meeting with American Catholic youths Friday by revealing a closely held pontifical secret: He uses a different Wordle start word each day.<\/p>\n

Leo shared his strategy for the popular New York Times online game before fielding questions via videoconference about artificial intelligence, social media and the future of the Catholic Church.<\/p>\n

The Chicago-born pope spoke from the Vatican to the National Catholic Youth Conference, an annual Catholic rally held this year in Indianapolis, via a feed from U.S. Catholic broadcaster EWTN.<\/p>\n

After Leo\u2019s election in May, his brother John Prevost revealed that Leo plays Wordle every day and that the brothers compare scores, like many families.<\/p>\n

Leo was asked about his strategy at the start of Friday\u2019s Q&A, which was otherwise somewhat scripted. Playing along, Leo said, \u201cI use a different word for Wordle every day, so there\u2019s no set starting word.\u201d<\/p>\n

The simple, free online puzzle lets players guess a five-letter word in six tries without hints and attracts millions of daily players worldwide.<\/p>\n

After the big reveal, Leo spent the hourlong session answering prepared questions from several conference participants. He said social media is a great way to stay connected and deepen faith, but warned that it can never replace real human relationships.<\/p>\n

He urged young people to follow the example of St. Carlo Acutis, a teenage Catholic influencer canonized earlier this year who set limits on his screen time so video games didn\u2019t dominate his free time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI encourage you to follow the example of Carlo Acutis,\u201d Leo said. \u201cBe intentional with your screen time. Make sure technology serves your life and not the other way around.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leo also applied that lesson to artificial intelligence, a topic he has said is a priority concern. He told the young people it is a powerful tool but that they must learn to use it responsibly and not let it interfere with their maturing into adults capable of making choices.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Leo XIV arrives in St. Peter's Square on the occasion of the weekly general audience at the Vatican on Nov. 19. (Gregorio Borgia\/The Associated Press)Gregorio Borgia ROME \u2013 Pope Leo XIV opened a virtual meeting with American Catholic youths Friday by revealing a closely held pontifical secret: He uses a different Wordle start word […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15586,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-15585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15585"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19735,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15585\/revisions\/19735"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15585"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=15585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}