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January 25, 2016
VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis will visit Sweden in October to participate in an ecumenical service and the beginning of a year of activities to mark the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation.
VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis has decided that six dioceses in Canada, previously considered mission territories under the jurisdiction of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, will transition to normal status.
BEIRUT - The newly ordained bishop for the Syriac Catholic Church in Canada pledged to make his first priority the suffering and spiritual needs of beleaguered Syriacs seeking refuge in Canada.
ROME - After walking across the threshold of the Holy Door with an Orthodox metropolitan and an Anglican archbishop, Pope Francis invoked God's mercy upon divided Christians and apologized for times that Catholics may have hurt members of other denominations.
PARIS - The first major council of the world’s Eastern Orthodox churches in over 1,200 years will take place in Crete after the influential Russian Orthodox Church said political tensions between Moscow and Ankara ruled out holding it in Turkey.
January 26, 2016
TORONTO - For Manhal Al-Khsom, his wife and his three daughters, prayers for Christian unity are not prayers for some ideal Church of the future, but prayers for his family, his friends and for everything he left behind when he came to Canada last April.
VATICAN CITY - Lent is a time of conversion and a time to deepen one's faith, demonstrating and sharing it through the corporal and spiritual works of mercy, Pope Francis said.
CEBU, Philippines - Los Angeles Auxiliary Bishop Robert Barron said popular culture's message of individuals being "infinitely right" is "repugnant to (Catholics') eucharistic faith." But he also said Christianity is "running on fumes" as it tries to counter the trend of people leaving the church or staying away from the Eucharist.
VATICAN CITY - Meeting with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani at the Vatican, Pope Francis told him he had high hopes for peace.
NAIROBI, Kenya - Kenya's bishops offered condolences to military families "who lost their loved ones" during an al-Shabab attack on Kenyan soldiers stationed in Somalia.
January 27, 2016
Pope Francis is taking direct aim at the wealthy and powerful of the world, saying in his message for Lent that they are often “slaves to sin” who, if they ignore the poor, “will end up condemning themselves and plunging into the eternal abyss of solitude which is hell.”
In the wake of a shooting tragedy at La Loche, Sask., that left four people dead, a call for healing and support has been embraced by the mother of two of the victims and the mother of the alleged shooter.
MANCHESTER, England - It can take just one month to turn a disenfranchised teenage Catholic student into fanatical Islamic terrorist, an English cardinal planned to warn Catholic teachers.
OTTAWA - Legislation that tries to restrict assisted suicide and euthanasia to the terminally ill would likely fail a court challenge, a prominent constitutional lawyer told a Parliamentary committee.
AMMAN, Jordan - Catholic clergy lamented the destruction of Iraq's oldest Christian monastery, St. Elijah, and urged the international community to do more to stop such assaults.
MARRAKESH, Morocco - Muslim leaders from around the world adopted a declaration defending the rights of religious minorities in predominantly Muslim countries.
January 28, 2016
A senior Roman Catholic bishop in the Central African Republic is warning that the Lord’s Resistance Army, a rebel force that killed more than 100,000 people in northern Uganda in the 1980s and ’90s, is rising up again in his country.
LOS ANGELES - A Chicago-based law firm known for supporting pro-life causes will defend the Centre for Medical Progress in a federal racketeering lawsuit filed Jan. 14 by Planned Parenthood against the centre.
A historic treaty between the Vatican and Palestine came into effect on Jan. 2 with little fanfare. But it warrants discussion now on the heels of an Israeli land grab that underlines how far removed the Holy Land remains from peace.
OTTAWA - Church-based charities, including the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace, are applauding the end of Canada Revenue Agency’s political audit program.