VATICAN CITY - The Vatican approved new statutes and bylaws for the U.S. Leadership Conference of Women Religious, ending a seven-year process of investigating the group and engaging in dialogue with its officers to ensure greater harmony with church teaching.

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The U.S. Catholic bishops have welcomed the Obama administration’s tentative agreement aimed at limiting Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and their top spokesman on international affairs bluntly warned Congress against doing anything to undermine it.

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NAIROBI, Kenya - The president of the Kenyan bishops' conference called on Easter worshippers to commit themselves to praying for peace and security in their homeland after militants attacked a college campus days earlier.

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Catholic bishops and religious orders from the high arctic to the southern tip of Patagonia are demanding accountability for Canadian mining companies operating in Latin America up to and including the right of villagers and farmers to sue in Canadian courts in the event of environmental disasters and human rights abuses.

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LAGOS, Nigeria - A delegation representing Catholic organizations in Nigeria offered words of comfort and pledged help for Nigerian refugees who fled to neighbouring Cameroon because of a violent insurgency.

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A traditionalist bishop who has denied the Holocaust has been automatically excommunicated along with the priest he illicitly ordained a bishop.

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BEIRUT - Maronite Catholic bishops urged Arab and Muslim countries to combat terrorism in order to preserve the Christian presence in the Middle East.

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VATICAN CITY - The best antidote to violence is teaching people to discover and accept differences as being valuable, Pope Francis told the bishops of North Africa.

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VATICAN CITY - As the Ukrainian Catholic bishops met in a private audience with Pope Francis Feb. 20, Ukraine was marking its first Day of the Heavenly Hundred Heroes, commemorating those who died in the Euromaidan movement one year earlier.

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VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis urged Ukraine's Catholic bishops to focus on the social and human tragedies unfolding in their country and avoid politicizing their role as Church leaders.

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LONDON, ONT. - A Polish-born Michaelite Father has been named auxiliary bishop for the Diocese of London.
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HONG KONG - Bishop Cosmas Shi Enxiang of Yixian, 94, a member of the so-called underground Catholic Church who has not been seen since his arrest in 2001, has died, a relative said.

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VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis named new bishops for Chaldean Catholics in Toronto and Sydney and confirmed the election of a Chaldean priest, who is currently ministering in Detroit, to be a new auxiliary bishop in Baghdad.

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VATICAN CITY - Leaving their habits behind and disguised along with police in regular clothes, a small group of three or four nuns raid brothels in Calcutta, India, at night, snatching young women and girls as young as 12 from the clutches of their captors.

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To help set the agenda for the 2015 Synod of Bishops on the family, the Vatican is sending the world's Catholic bishops' conferences a list of questions on a range of topics, including matters of marriage and sexuality that proved especially controversial at the 2014 family Synod.

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