International News

News from outside of Canada.

New Australian law requires priests to break seal of confession

September 8, 2020

BRISBANE, Australia -- A new law requires priests in the state of Queensland to break the seal of confession to report child sex abuse to police or face three years in jail.

'We need a miracle,' Lebanese nun says a month after Beirut blasts

September 8, 2020

BEIRUT -- Sister Marie Justine el Osta had just begun a spiritual retreat in a mountain convent 27 miles north of Beirut. Even in that remote location, the blast that rocked Lebanon's capital Aug. 4 could be felt, like an earthquake.

Visiting Lebanon, Cardinal Parolin emphasizes 'You are not alone'

September 4, 2020

BEIRUT -- Bringing a message of hope to Lebanon, a month after a double blast struck Beirut, Pope Francis' closest collaborator assured the Lebanese: "You are not alone. The whole world supports you."

Activists shocked after Asia Bibi disowns autobiography

September 2, 2020

LAHORE, Pakistan -- Human rights activists were shocked after Asia Bibi dissociated herself from her autobiography, due out later in September.

Belarus archbishop warns of civil war

September 2, 2020

WARSAW, Poland -- The president of the Belarusian bishops’ conference has been barred from re-entering his country from abroad, after warning in a pastoral letter that the nation’s worsening crisis could spill into civil war.

Pope’s reforms meet ‘active resistance’ in U.S.

September 2, 2020

WASHINGTON -- Pope Francis’ efforts to bring reform in the Catholic Church are meeting resistance in some Church circles, according to one panelist at an Aug. 31 online forum sponsored by Georgetown University’s Office of the Vice President for Global Engagement.

Polish bishops reiterate church teaching on LGBT, gender ideology

September 2, 2020

WARSAW, Poland -- Poland's bishops called on Catholics to show respect for people connected with the LGBT movement, but urged them to resist LGBT calls for a "social and cultural transformation" in conflict with church teaching.

Hurricane destroys Louisiana churches, closes schools, displaces priests

August 31, 2020

LAKE CHARLES, La. -- Hurricane Laura destroyed six churches in the Diocese of Lake Charles, left a dozen others "highly compromised" and did heavy damage to chancery offices.

Christians, others warn Turkey is 'weaponizing water' in northeast Syria

August 28, 2020

AMMAN, Jordan -- Parts of Syria's north where Kurds, Christians and Yazidis have practiced religious freedom in recent years are reportedly again under attack by mainly Turkish military and their allied Syrian Islamist fighters.

Compassion drives exiled Belarus leader

August 28, 2020

Some small part of the revolution now on display in the streets of Minsk and other Belarusian cities may have begun in Catholic, rural Ireland in the 1990s. It was there that Belarus’ likely-elected president who is currently in exile visited for a month each summer for 10 years, when she was between the ages of 12 and 22.