Honouring Toronto’s Cardinal Thomas Collins for the thousands of refugees he has brought to Canada came quite naturally to the community at the Chaldean Catholic Cathedral of the Good Shepherd.

Younis Gil is a small man who struggles with English. Years of stress, uncertainty and hard labour have left an imprint. But he squares his shoulders, straightens his back, meets your gaze and smiles. With his wife Saleema Bibi and surrounded by three of his adult children plus a son-in-law, he is a proud pater familias embracing a life that a few months ago was hard to imagine.

St. Martin Catholic Elementary School in Edmonton has so far welcomed 39 refugee students from Ukraine over the last two plus months since Russian troops  invaded their country.

The Office for Refugees of the Archdiocese of Toronto (ORAT) is in discussion with Ukrainian Catholic and Ukrainian Orthodox Church officials to coordinate a program that would see Toronto parishioners host Ukrainian families fleeing the war in their homeland.

VATICAN CITY -- Continuing the mission entrusted to him by Pope Francis, Cardinal Michael Czerny visited Slovakia and a Ukrainian border town to convey the pope's closeness to victims of Russia's war against Ukraine.

To meet the anticipated needs of the expected influx of refugee children fleeing Ukraine, the Toronto Catholic District School Board’s Angel Foundation, Loretto Fund plans to increase its annual budget from $5,000 to $50,000.

PRZEMYSL, Poland -- Buses, broken suitcases, a pile of strollers and tents stuffed with donated clothing, toys, diapers, canned food, stiff cots and blankets fill the parking lot of the defunct Tesco supermarket in Przemysl.

“Azadeh’s” 30 days in immigration detention began as a time “of hope and protection” but quickly deteriorated to one of worry, according to the mental health researcher who tracked the 11-year-old refugee’s time in detention.

The Canadian Council of Churches, Amnesty International and the Canadian Council for Refugees are headed to the Supreme Court of Canada on behalf of refugee families who want a legal way to apply for asylum at Canada’s land borders.

WARSAW, Poland -- Poland's military archbishop urged security forces to prevent the illegal entry of refugees and migrants, as the country's bishops' conference announced a nationwide collection to help those amassing on the frontier with Belarus.

Canada’s Catholics have more and better opportunities than most to back up Pope Francis’ call for the Church to reach out and help the world’s 82.4 million forcibly displaced people, said Office for Refugees, Archdiocese of Toronto director Deacon Rudy Ovcjack.

Canada’s commitment to take in 20,000 new Afghan refugees looks pretty generous compared to Great Britain’s (population 66 million) pledge to take in 20,000 over five years or the United States’ (population 328 million) promise to welcome 30,000. But what happens to them once they get here?

Catholic refugee sponsors are ready and eager to help Ottawa resettle 20,000 Afghan refugees, but three weeks after the federal government announced the new refugee resettlement target the sponsors are still waiting to learn when, how and how many refugees they can welcome.

WASHINGTON -- President Joe Biden announced May 3 he was raising the historically low refugee cap of 15,000 left by the Trump administration, but he also warned that his administration may not be able to meet the new number of refugees it is seeking to resettle in what remains of the fiscal year: 62,500.

Even as the last of five fires was still out of control among clusters of tents and shelters that house 600,000 Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar, Caritas Bangladesh head of programs Abdullah Fuad was thinking of the women and children who have now endured one more disaster. “We are still counting the number of damaged households and the number of people affected,” he told The Catholic Register just hours after the fire broke out on March 22.