VATICAN CITY -- Since his election, Pope Francis has made the care and welcoming of migrants and refugees a cornerstone of his papacy.

VATICAN CITY -- The excluded, especially migrants and refugees, are the ones who ultimately pay the price for humanity's greed, Pope Francis said.

WASHINGTON -- Leadership of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in an op-ed cast blame on government policies for recent child deaths near the U.S.-Mexico border.

BALTIMORE -- While the sex abuse crisis consumed the June meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Baltimore, prelates who work on the border, such as Bishop Daniel E. Flores of Brownsville, Texas, have been facing a different crisis also involving children. 

VATICAN CITY -- Being indifferent to or excluding migrants is a sign of a deteriorating morality that will soon spread and risk marginalizing everyone who fails to fit in, Pope Francis said.

VATICAN – After moving the Vatican celebration of the World Day of Migrants and Refugees from January to September, Pope Francis wants Catholics to understand how concern for migrants and refugees is part of a much broader Christian concern for people in need.

PIEDRAS NEGRAS, Mexico – Gangs in Honduras first threatened Denia Garcia’s husband six months ago, telling him to join with them or die. Her husband, a police officer, fled to the United States, arriving successfully.

VATICAN – Even if Christians struggle to recognize him with his "torn clothes (and) dirty feet," Jesus is present in the migrants and refugees who seek safety and a dignified life in a new land, Pope Francis said.

LIMA, Peru – Elide Pena, 55, grins when she talks about her favourite Christmas memory: the time when she fell under Santa’s sleigh attempting to grab a toy for one of her grandchildren during a Christmas party in her native Venezuela.

VATICAN – People find Jesus only through humble love, and once they find him, they are called to offer him the gifts of their prayer, their adoration and their care of others, Pope Francis said.

VATICAN – In today's climate of mistrust, rejection and nationalism, the world urgently needs peacemakers and politicians who protect and lovingly serve others, Pope Francis said in his annual message for the World Day of Peace Jan. 1.

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.

ROME – In the heart of Rome, near streets of fancy shops already blinged out for Christmas shopping, Pope Francis prayed for Romans struggling to survive and for families in the city and around the world who face the same lack of welcome that Mary and Joseph experienced.

MEXICO CITY – The first participants in the caravan of Central Americans arriving in Tijuana, Mexico, were met with hostility as residents of an affluent neighbourhood confronted migrants wanting to camp on a beach near the border fence separating the United States and Mexico.

As a caravan of some 7,000 weary migrants trudged across the poorest region of Mexico, heading for the U.S. border, they found sympathy and received donations of food, water and clothing from ordinary Mexicans who themselves had little.