News/International

Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican's permanent observer to U.S. agencies in Geneva, told the Human Rights Council that more than 100,000 Christians are killed each year because of their faith, and millions more face bigotry, intolerance and marginalization because of their beliefs.

Vatican officials decry persecution of Christians around the world

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GENEVA - More than 100,000 Christians are killed each year because of their faith, and millions more face bigotry, intolerance and marginalization because of their beliefs, a Vatican official said.

Bomb experts from the military secure the scene of an explosion at St. Joseph Mfanyakazi Catholic Church in Arusha, Tanzania, dated May 5. The head of the Tanzanian bishops' conference, Bishop Tarcisius Ngalalekumtwa, warned of a growing threat from militant Ilamists.

Tanzanian bishops' head warns of growing threat from militant Islamists

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OXFORD, England - The head of the Tanzanian bishops' conference warned of a growing threat from militant Islamists and urged police and government to act more forcefully against violence and intimidation.

Father Scott Carroll, 46, lost his battle with cancer May 10, just two days after Bishop Leonard P. Blair of Toledo, Ohio, ordained him a priest at the family home in Maumee. Father Carroll is pictured in a 2012 photo.

Being priest was 'everything' to man ordained two days before he died

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MAUMEE, Ohio - Ordination "meant everything" to Fr. Scott R. Carroll.

Julia Mozheyko and Sivan Arbel, two Jewish students who designed a Catholic church for their architecture class at Toronto’s Ryerson University.

Young architects explore the sacred, secular

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TORONTO - Those who have come to believe secular universities are phobic about the sacred, allergic to transcendence, divorced from the spiritual, God-free zones have not encountered Ryerson University Associate Professor of Architecture Ed Wojs.

John Stemberger, an Eagle Scout and founder of OnMyHonor.Net, a coalition opposed to allowing open homosexuality in the Boy Scouts of America, addresses the media May 23 in Grapevine, Texas, after the Scouts voted on allowing openly gay members to join t he Boy Scouts of America May 23 .

U.S. Boy Scouts vote to allow openly gay youths to belong to Scout troops

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GRAPEVINE, Texas - The Boy Scouts of America's National Council voted late May 23 to allow openly gay youths admittance as members into the 103-year-old organization, effective Jan. 1, 2014.

The Knights of Malta, a 900- year-old lay Catholic order, is trying to take the heat off Kilis’s municipal hospital by opening up a field hospital in shipping containers nearby.

Knights of Malta open field hospital to aid Syrians

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When bombs fall in the Syrian city of Aleppo, it’s bad news for the municipal hospital in Kilis, Turkey. The Turkish border town of 80,000 has taken in 35,000 Syrian refugees from Syria’s civil war — the majority suffering physical and psychological trauma.

The first eucharistic prayer is seen on a page from a copy of the new Roman Missal in English published by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. In a survey, 59 per cent of responding priests said they disliked the new English translation of the third edition of the Roman Missal.

Majority of U.S. priests dislike new Missal translation, survey finds

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WASHINGTON - A majority of U.S. priests said they dislike the translation of the Roman Missal introduced at Advent 2011, a new survey found.

Pope Francis and President Mauricio Funes Cartagena of El Salvador look at a reliquary containing a blood-stained piece of the vestment of Archbishop Oscar Romero during a private audience in the Apostolic Palace at the Vatican May 23. Archbishop Romero was wearing the vestment when he was assassinated while celebrating Mass in 1980. President Funes presented the reliquary as a gift.

El Salvador's leader gives Pope bloodstained Romero relic

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VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis received a bloodstained relic of slain Archbishop Oscar Romero as a gift from El Salvador's President Mauricio Funes Cartagena.

Oklahoma National Guard soldiers and rescue workers dig through the rubble of Plaza Tower Elementary school May 21 after a devastating tornado ripped through Moore, Okla., the previous day. The tornado touched down outside Oklahoma City leaving a 20-mile path of death and destruction.

Tornadoes exact deadly toll; region needs 'a lot of prayers right now'

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OKLAHOMA CITY - Even after the initial death toll was cut by more than half, the human and material devastation of a string of tornadoes that buffeted areas of the archdiocese of Oklahoma City May 19-20 was incalculable.

Visitors were evacuated from Notre Dame Cathedral after Dominique Venner, a conservative who was a staunch opponent of same-sex marriage, committed suicide in the 850-year-old church.

Police evacuate Notre Dame Cathedral after man commits suicide

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PARIS - Visitors were evacuated from Notre Dame Cathedral after a man committed suicide in the 850-year-old church, police said.

People gather around the ruins of the burned Bama Market in Maiduguri, Nigeria, April 29, after it was destroyed by gunmen. Nigerian bishops have expressed hope that government actions in the country's northeast will result in a more normal, less violent situation for people.

Nigerian bishops hope crackdown against insurgents restores normalcy

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LAGOS, Nigeria - Nigerian bishops said they hoped the government's declaration of a state of emergency would help restore some normalcy, and one bishop said President Goodluck Jonathan was just fulfilling his constitutional duties.

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