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. 

SEOUL, South Korea – An Iranian student who converted to Catholicism in South Korea has obtained refugee status through the efforts of Cardinal Andrew Yeom Soo-jung of Seoul and the man's classmates.

VATICAN – Honduran Bishop Jose Antonio Canales of Danli said that, given what is going on in his country and throughout Central America, he had to walk in the "Share the Journey" campaign of Caritas Internationalis.

A Catholic school in downtown Toronto that has set empty for most of the past 15 years has been offered for free to the city, with one caveat: that it be used as a shelter.

How little it takes. How few people cross our borders before we allow narratives of fear to start taking hold of us. 

SAN JUAN, Texas -- In less than 48 hours, a group of Catholic bishops saw the faces of triumph and relief from migrants who had been recently released by immigration authorities, but ended their two-day journey to the border with a more "somber" experience, visiting detained migrant children living temporarily within the walls of a converted Walmart.