South America

Venezuelan Canadian Augusto Figuera and his wife, Laura Ortega, were awakened after 2 a.m. on Jan. 3 by a call from a Toronto friend. She informed the couple that a military operation was underway in their homeland and shared videos and posts from social media.

As deposed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro made his first appearance Jan. 5 in a New York courtroom on narco-terrorism charges, uncertainty about immigration status lingered for some Venezuelan migrants in the U.S.

Pope Leo XIV expressed "deep concern" following the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, by the United States in a large-scale attack.

Colombia's bishops expressed their outrage after at least 18 people died and more than 40 were injured after two attacks in Colombia attributed to different dissident factions of the former FARC guerrilla group.

Nicaragua's ruling Sandinista regime has seized a prominent Catholic school, claiming without proof that it had operated a "torture" centre during past protests and renaming the education facility for a slain partisan.

A decades-long fight for justice in Brazil exposed by a Catholic priest may be nearing a historic verdict.

For almost three weeks, Colombian authorities have been searching for Fr. Carlos Jaimes Guerrero, a 30-year-old Augustinian friar who went missing on June 17, and they still have not identified potential reasons for his disappearance.

A Mexican priest remains in serious condition after being shot four times while traveling to minister to a sick person—an attack reinforcing Mexico's reputation as one of the world's most dangerous for clergy, despite its large Catholic population.

Mexico's Catholic clergy have called for a truce on Dec. 12, the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and on Christmas Day as criminal violence wracks swaths of the country and clergy working in conflictive regions come under threat.