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.

Banned by the Quebec government, churches and faith communities who sponsor refugees want to face their accusers and get some sort of explanation for Quebec’s sudden one-year suspension of refugee sponsorship.

Church networks are getting ready for a humanitarian disaster and a massive wave of new refugees as the civil war in Ethiopia rages on.

Canada’s Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship delivered some great news in Parliament Oct. 30, a win-win for both the country and those coming to Canada to build a better life.

Ottawa’s plan to take in a record 1.2 million immigrants between now and 2023, just under 15 per cent of them refugees, faces some serious COVID-era challenges, according to the churches and other organizations who sponsor over 20,000 refugees per year.

Most charitable gifts are spent. The money is spent responsibly and carefully and there’s never enough of it, but the money gets spent. That’s why there’s always another letter, another appeal, another campaign.

The federal government’s decision to appeal a court ruling that puts an international refugee agreement with the United States at risk is disappointing but not surprising to refugee advocacy and church groups that have long sought to have the Safe Third Country Agreement scuttled.

Refugee advocates are applauding a Federal Court ruling that Canada’s Safe Third Country Agreement with the United States violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms by sending refugees who arrive at Canadian land borders back to detention in the United States.

If the Church isn’t there for displaced and refugee Christians in the Middle East, nobody else is going to protect these impoverished and persecuted minorities from COVID-19.

ROME -- Dozens of refugees sheltering in an abandoned office building have tested positive for the coronavirus, triggering concerns for the welfare of the hundreds more still living there in crowded and unsanitary conditions.