WASHINGTON - In the days that followed Pope Francis' Aug. 18 remarks on U.S. airstrikes earlier in the month against Islamic State, the buzz was about whether the Pope had actually given his consent to them.
Even as some prominent Christians are calling on the United States to take more forceful military action against Islamic extremists in Iraq and Syria, more than 50 mainly Catholic and Protestant leaders are telling President Barack Obama to halt American airstrikes and pursue solely peaceful means to resolve the conflict.
Updated 08/22/14
NEW YORK - Pope Francis phoned the bereaved family of James Foley, a U.S. journalist killed by Islamic State militants in Syria.
U.S. must ‘destroy’ Islamic State, say religious conservatives
A coalition of more than 50 U.S. religious leaders, led by mostly conservative Catholic, evangelical and Jewish activists, is calling on President Barack Obama to sharply escalate military action against Islamic extremists in Iraq. They say “nothing short of the destruction” of the Islamic State can protect Christians and religious minorities now being subjected to “a campaign of genocide.”
Prominent American conservative voices are criticizing the decision to bring two medical missionaries who contracted Ebola back to the United States for treatment.
American Jesuits are pushing members of Congress who were educated at the Catholic order’s schools to pass aid for thousands of refugee children who have surged across the border in Texas in recent months, calling proposals to swiftly deport them “inhumane and an insult to American values.”
VATICAN CITY - The Vatican has ordered a Roman Catholic diocese in eastern Paraguay to remove a priest accused of sex abuse in the United States and to restrict the activities of the bishop who hired him.
NOGALES, Ariz. - A shirtsleeve waved from the top of the border fence like a signal flag.
WASHINGTON - From the head of the U.S. agency in charge of the welfare of more than 50,000 Central American children who have been apprehended at the Mexican border, to the Honduran cardinal who heads the international Catholic relief agency, Caritas, the message was clear, those minors are as much refugees as the people fleeing upheaval in Syria or South Sudan.