International News

News from outside of Canada.

Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics jumps into Bible, pot debate

September 9, 2015

OKLAHOMA CITY - The Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics briefly used its official Facebook page on Aug. 26 to debate marijuana and the Bible. After two commenters posted references to the Bible in response to a story about the detrimental effects of marijuana on the brain, a bureau employee engaged them in a theological argument.

West complicit in child’s death

September 9, 2015

TORONTO - The Catholic Patriarch of Antioch, the most senior Catholic bishop in Syria, says the West must share responsibility for the fate of three-year-old Alan Kurdi, the Syrian toddler pictured drowned on a Turkish beach on newspaper front pages worldwide.

Israel's Christian students demonstrate against cuts in school budgets

September 9, 2015

JERUSALEM - As Israeli students began their second week of classes Sept. 6, thousands of students and teachers from Christian schools converged in front of the Israeli prime minister's office to protest government budget cuts to their schools.

Israeli Christian schools strike to protest cuts in public funding

September 8, 2015

JERUSALEM - Israel’s 47 Christian schools are entering the second week of an open-ended strike to protest ongoing cuts in government allocations, which they attribute to government discrimination against minority religious groups.

Protests, prayer provoke change in Guatemalan government

September 8, 2015

GUATEMALA CITY - Mass at the Divine Providence Parish, celebrated shortly after polls closed in this country's recent elections, included intentions. The parishioners prayed for the "people and pastors" of Guatemala, along with the country itself -- where citizens, protesting peacefully for months, forced a president accused of corruption to resign in the days prior to the Sept. 6 vote.

Good sports: Young adults build faith, community through athletics

September 7, 2015

SAN DIEGO - A ministry focusing on the excitement and friendship that can come from athletic competition is bringing young people together in faith.

Most U.S. Catholics are fine with nontraditional families

September 7, 2015

Families are one great reason why Pope Francis is coming to America.

Mural of pope looks out over New York's Madison Square Garden Mass site

September 6, 2015

NEW YORK - New Yorkers and tourists in midtown Manhattan have been gazing up at a smiling Pope Francis at one of New York's busiest intersections.

Church agencies highlight growing urgency of Europe's refugee crisis

September 4, 2015

OXFORD, England - Catholic aid agencies have urged Europeans not to turn against migrants seeking refuge from Syria and other countries, in what media reports describe as the continent's greatest refugee movement since the Second World War.

Cardinal says Britons seeing human face of suffering migrants

September 3, 2015

LONDON - Images of drowned refugees are causing the British people to cry out for a more generous response to the migrant crisis engulfing Europe, said an English cardinal.