International News

News from outside of Canada.

By plane, train and bus, Chaldean priest visits Iraqi refugees in Turkey

December 4, 2016

ISTANBUL – Holding a golden chalice and paten with a single hand, Father Remzi Diril slowly moved from one person to another, distributing the Eucharist. He reached for a consecrated host, dipped it in the chalice, and gave it to a woman in her 40s, whose head was covered with a veil.

In new musical, disability rights activist tackles assisted suicide

December 4, 2016

LONDON, England - Physician-assisted suicide has been a subject of controversy for several years, but Liz Carr is taking the issue somewhere it has never been before: the musical theatre.

Syriac Catholic patriarch 'horrified' after seeing Iraqi 'ghost towns'

December 2, 2016

BEIRUT – The Syriac Catholic patriarch said he was horrified to see widespread devastation and what he called "ghost towns" during a recent visit to northern Iraq.

Doctors, church leaders tell the horrors of life in Syria to Irish Parliament

December 2, 2016

DUBLIN – Fifty percent of Syria's hospitals and medical centers have been destroyed or looted and their staff kidnapped, tortured or slaughtered, a leading Syrian surgeon told members of the Irish Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee.

Faith leaders urge Obama to grant pardons to immigrants, prisoners

December 2, 2016

WASHINGTON – Faith leaders and immigrant advocates urged President Barack Obama to pardon immigrants in the country without legal documentation and people with nonviolent, federal drug offences serving prison sentences.

Oklahoma priest killed in Guatemala declared first American martyr by Pope Francis

December 2, 2016

VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis has recognized the martyrdom of Father Stanley Rother of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, making him the first martyr born in the United States.

Updated: Some fleeing scene of Tennessee wildfires describe it as escaping 'gates of hell'

December 2, 2016

PIGEON FORGE, Tenn. – St. Mary's Catholic Church was at ground zero in the wildfires that devastated parts of Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge Nov. 28, and while flames reached to within yards of the tourist city church, it appears to have been spared.

Partial decriminalization of abortion in Brazil causes uproar among religious

December 2, 2016

RIO DE JANEIRO – A Brazilian court’s ruling legalizing abortion during the first trimester has caused uproar among politicians with strong ties to Roman Catholic and evangelical faiths, who have gained ground in the current government.

Pope Francis meets U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry at the Vatican

December 2, 2016

VATICAN CITY – While he was in town for a global meeting on the crisis in the Mediterranean region, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry stopped by the Vatican for a meeting with Pope Francis that likely centred largely on the problem of migration.

Updated: French archbishop criticizes bill that could make websites discouraging abortion illegal

December 2, 2016

PARIS – The president of the French bishops' conference wrote French President Francois Hollande to express his worries about fast-tracked legislation that would extend illegal interference on abortions to websites. Archbishop Georges Pontier of Marseille, president, said the bishops think the legislation questions the very foundations of liberties in France, and he urged Hollande to not allow the bill's passage.