News/International

When President Obama and Pope Francis sit down at the Vatican on March 27, the meeting may well offer a vision of what could have been for Democrats and the Catholic Church over the last six years: a leader of the state and a leader of the Church working on the many issues where they agree while working through the issues where they don’t.

WASHINGTON - Auxiliary Bishop Gregorio Rosa Chavez of San Salvador said there's strong hope and signals from the Vatican that beatification for Archbishop Oscar Romero, the man many consider a modern-day saint, will come in three years.

ROME - U.S. President Barack Obama is to meet Pope Francis for the first time March 27 as Obama wraps up a European tour, a high-profile encounter between two major world leaders that appears to carry especially high stakes from the U.S. perspective.

ZAATARI REFUGEE CAMP, Jordan - As Syria's civil war hurtles into its fourth year, hopes of returning home soon seem far off for the 2.5 million refugees sheltering in neighbouring countries, like Jordan. Syrians are soon expected to overtake Afghans as the largest refugee population in the world, according to the United Nations.

DOS DE MAYO, Peru - It was a day Father Miguel Angel Cadenas did not expect to see. One after another, government officials stood before several hundred Kukama Indians packed into a sweltering wood-frame room in this tiny riverside village, describing the results of a study of pollution in their communities.

CAIRO - Weeks after a controversial bill against homosexuality became law in their country, there was still no official word from Uganda's Catholic bishops on how they perceived it, said a senior Catholic spokesman.

NEW DELHI - Protests are growing in Sri Lanka over the security forces' arrest of two outspoken Catholic human rights activists under stringent terrorism laws.

HONG KONG - Bishop Joseph Fan Zhongliang of Shanghai, a prominent leader of China's underground Catholic Community, died after a brief illness March 16 at his home. He was 96.

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis met privately at the Vatican with the head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church March 17, the day after pro-Russian voters on the Crimean peninsula voted to secede from Ukraine in a referendum the United States and European Union called illegal.

WASHINGTON -- A bipartisan invitation to Pope Francis to address a joint session of Congress if he comes to the U.S. in 2015 recognizes "the importance of the qualities" the pontiff embodies that resonate with people around the globe, said Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl of Washington.