News/International

CANTERBURY, England - Muslims have reacted with horror to a sensational report revealing that 1,400 children were subjected to rapes, abductions and beatings by gangs of men, mostly of Pakistani origin, in the northern English town of Rotherham.

BEIRUT - Catholic and Orthodox patriarchs of the Middle East denounced attacks on Christians and called upon the international community to work toward eradicating terrorist groups.

JERUSALEM - Catholic aid organizations are hopeful that the most recent ceasefire between Israel and Hamas will hold as they begin to assess the needs in Gaza after 50 days of war.

BEIRUT - Returning from a visit to the Kurdish region of Iraq, Syriac Catholic Patriarch Ignace Joseph III Younan called the Islamic State invasion "pure and simple religious cleansing and attempted genocide."

WASHINGTON - Pro-life groups that have battled with the federal government since the first rules were issued on contraceptive coverage in 2012 derided the government's latest rules allowing religious institutions -- and potentially some for-profit companies -- to opt out of the contraceptive mandate in the Affordable Care Act.

ROCHESTER, N.H. - Slain journalist James Foley, who sent images and copy from different war zones, was described as living his faith through his work.

CAPE TOWN, South Africa - Hunger and panic are spreading among people unable to work because of restrictions aimed at containing the spread of Ebola in Liberia and Sierra Leone, say church workers in West Africa.

VATICAN CITY - Although Christians, Muslims and Jews have struggled for hundreds of years to live peacefully alongside each other in the Middle East, "we have never seen the kind of 'religious cleansing' we are witnessing today," said the head of the region's Franciscans.

SEOUL, South Korea - Since the end of the Korean War in 1953, no Catholic priest has resided in the North of this divided peninsula, where autonomous religious activity is effectively forbidden. And no enemy of the communist regime there is more detested or fiercely denounced than the United States.

For decades, evangelical leaders have touted “virginity pledges” as a way for teens and young adults to “save themselves for marriage.”