UNITED NATIONS – Women should not be required to divest themselves of femininity to achieve empowerment and gender equality, according to panelists at a March 19 event at the United Nations.

VATICAN – The food people pick at the supermarket and cook in their kitchens can make a huge difference in helping address the global problems of hunger, obesity and climate change, a number of speakers said at a Vatican conference on sustainable development.

NEW YORK – The Catholic Church is working to bridge the divide between Muslims and Christians in a country where the divide between the groups is fraught with large and small issues, said a Nigerian archbishop.

VATICAN – Violating religious freedom harms not only the individuals being persecuted, it also damages communities and often opens the door to further violence, a Vatican representative said.

GENEVA – The Vatican supports efforts to build stronger and sustainable essential health care services on the way toward achieving universal health coverage, a Vatican official said.

Leaders of the 26 churches who represent more than 85 per cent of Canada’s Christians are demanding a meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to discuss nuclear arms policy.

There’s nothing like a feel-good story to kick off a new year, and stories seldom get more uplifting than a dramatic rescue involving a teenage girl who feared for her life.

I was troubled to hear my Ottawa colleague describe what she saw Dec. 8 on Parliament Hill. 

WARSAW, Poland – Catholic participants and observers criticized a "lack of ambition" by government negotiators at a U.N. conference on climate change that ended Dec. 15 with agreement on a rulebook to implement the 2015 Paris climate accord.

Standing on the outside looking in as the world’s environment ministers and their armies of technocrats hammered out the rulebook for Paris Agreement on climate change, Canadian Josianne Gauthier wished there was an injection  of urgency onto the agenda.

VATICAN – Protecting human dignity and human rights must always be at the heart of any action by world leaders to confront the many humanitarian crises afflicting today's world, Pope Francis said.

VATICAN – The Vatican praised the adoption by more than 160 nations of a key agreement on global migration, saying today's migration challenges are better tackled together than with "isolationist" stances.

Catholic representatives worked to keep negotiations on track for a comprehensive deal to address global warming as the U.N. climate change conference entered its second and final week in Katowice, Poland.

A new international agreement that covers all dimensions of international migration that will be signed in Morocco, Dec. 10-11 represents the alternative to fear, says Canadian Jesuit Fr. Michael Czerny.

UNITED NATIONS – Seventy years after its adoption, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was lauded Dec. 4 as a seminal, yet imperfect achievement of the nascent United Nations.