International News

Sub-Saharan Africa has replaced Europe as the locus for the world’s Christians, due to both higher birthrates and Western Europe’s “widespread Christian disaffiliation” — with Christians declining as a share of the world’s population due to adherents leaving the faith, according to new research by the Pew Research Center.

A record 19,000 pilgrims are set to walk from Paris to Chartres this Pentecost weekend, June 7–9, in the annual traditional pilgrimage organized by Notre-Dame de Chrétienté.

From being kidnapped and held hostage by Islamic terrorists, miraculously liberated and now ministering to a dwindling Christian community in Syria, Archbishop Jacques Mourad exemplifies the suffering and resilience of his people during the darkest days of a brutal civil war and the reign of terror by ISIS.

Pope Leo XIV and Russian leader Vladimir Putin held their first telephone conversation June 4 with the pope encouraging Putin to make a gesture to show he is serious about peace with Ukraine, the Vatican press office said.

As millions of pilgrims flocked to the famed Ugandan shrine in Namugongo in the days leading to commemoration of the country's 45 Christian martyrs, local authorities prevented an attempted terror attack in what they said was a swift secret service operation, possibly saving hundreds from imminent death.

A video of Brazilian nuns beatboxing and dancing hip-hop, a scene taken from a local TV show and defined by celebrities like Whoopi Goldberg as "a real life Sister Act," went viral on May 28, with millions of views all over the world.

Their names may have faded from history books, but on May 31, the Church officially remembered them forever. In a solemn ceremony in Braniewo, northeastern Poland, 15 nuns from the Congregation of St. Catherine Virgin and Martyr, were beatified.

Pope Leo XIV acknowledged the Day of Prayer for the Church in China (May 24) in his May 25 Regina Caeli address, just as navigating relations with the Chinese Communist Party is already shaping up to be one of the thornier issues Leo will have to contend with during his pontificate.

Russia has rejected the Vatican's offer to host talks for ending the war in Ukraine, despite international support for the idea.

In the Flannery O'Connor short story "Good Country People," a mother ruefully wishes her offspring had chosen another career path than philosophy because, "You could not say, 'My daughter is a philosopher.' That was something that had ended with the Greeks and Romans."