News/International

Smoke rises after an an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City July 8. The Israeli army intensified its offensive on the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, striking Hamas sites and killing dozens of people in a military operation it says is aimed at quelling rocket fire agai nst Israel.

Interfaith leaders launch daylong unity fast for Mideast peace

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While the violence escalates in Israel and Gaza, a movement is taking hold that unites Jews, Muslims and others in a campaign for peace.

Lord Carey of Clifton, England, who served as Anglican archbishop of Canterbury 1991-2002, preaches during a service of Christian unity in the Anglican cathedral in Chester Jan. 19. Lord Carey said he would dissent from the Church of England's teaching a gainst assisted suicide and vote for a bill scheduled to be debated in the British Parliament.

Former Archbishop of Canterbury supports assisted suicide bill

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CANTERBURY, England - Three leading Anglicans have entered an explosive debate about whether it is permissible for Christians to allow doctors in England and Wales to administer lethal doses of drugs to terminally ill patients given less than six months to live.

A Palestinian man examines the damage to his destroyed house following an Israeli airstrike north of Gaza City July 11. A Catholic priest in Gaza said Israeli missile attacks are wide-ranging and that there is no safe zone.

Gaza's Christians work together to stay safe

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JERUSALEM - Members of the tiny Christian community in the Gaza Strip have been keeping tabs on each other and lending a helping hand to keep each other safe during Israeli airstrikes throughout the region, but nowhere in the territory is really safe, said a priest at the territory's only Catholic parish.

Women priests in in York, England, react after the General Synod of the Church of England voted July 14 to authorize the ordination of women as bishops. The decision overturns centuries of tradition in a church that has been deeply divided on the issue.

Church of England votes for women bishops; move seen as ecumenical snag

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VATICAN CITY - The General Synod of the Church of England voted July 14 to authorize the ordination of women as bishops and approved motions pledging to respect and work with people who believe that, theologically, the vote was a mistake.

Pope Francis shakes hands with Anglican Archbishop Justin Welby of Canterbury, England, during a private meeting at the Vatican June 16.

Church of England set to vote on women bishops

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CANTERBURY, England - Women’s rights activists greeted with delight signs the Church of England is poised to relent and allow women to be consecrated as bishops.

Yelda Cortez of the U.S. bishops' Migration and Refugee Services office, looks out the window of a bus as it makes its way along the U.S.-Mexico border fence.

Minors at U.S. border should be thought of as refugees, speakers say

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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.

Processions like this are banned in Calabria now because of a similar procession where the statue of the Madonna passed by the house of a mafia boss under house arrest.

After Pope's condemnation of mafia, Italian bishop bans processions

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VATICAN CITY - A bishop in Calabria has ordered an end to all religious processions in his diocese after 30 men carrying a large statue of Mary and hundreds of people accompanying the statue paused and bowed in front of the house of a presumed mafia boss.

A U.S. court ruled a priest may be compelled as to what he heard in a confessional in an abuse case.

Court may compel priest to break confessional seal in abuse case

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BATON ROUGE, La. - Louisiana's Supreme Court has ruled that a priest may be compelled to testify as to what he heard in the confessional in 2008 concerning an abuse case.

Palestinians run following what police said was an Israeli airstrike on a house in Gaza City July 9. The Israeli army intensified its offensive on the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, striking Hamas sites and killing dozens of people in a military operation it says is aimed at quelling rocket fire against Israel.

Holy Land bishops criticize 'collective punishment' of Palestinians

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JERUSALEM - Catholic leaders in the Holy Land called for an end to the cycle of violence and criticized Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories and its collective punishment of Palestinians.

Members of the Iraqi Special Operations Forces take their positions during clashes with the militant Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in the city of Ramadi June 19. Chaldean Patriarch Louis Sako called the current situation in Iraq “perhaps the darkest and most difficult period in (the Church’s) recent history.”

Iraq facing perhaps its 'darkest and most difficult period,' says patriarch

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AMMAN, Jordan - The patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church in Baghdad called the current situation in his country "perhaps the darkest and most difficult period in (the Church's) recent history."

Msgr. Nunzio Galantino

Religious procession past Mafia boss’ home irks Italy’s Catholic clergy

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ROME - Only two weeks after Pope Francis announced he was excommunicating the Mafia, a religious procession in southern Italy has provoked uproar after paying homage to a convicted mobster.

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