European Politics

An almost 50-per-cent decline in Mass attendance since just after the turn of the century has led the Archdiocese of Halifax-Yarmouth to take drastic measures concerning little used churches on the Eastern Shore of Nova Scotia. 

After 42 years of digging wells, setting up water purification systems, organizing villagers to demand better education, health care, roads and infrastructure, a little Canadian-Indian development agency estimates it has helped four million people live a better life in rural India.

EDMONTON -- When disaster or tragedy strikes — like the forest fires that have been burning in northern Alberta — first responders are on the scene within minutes to provide urgent care and healing.

MANCHESTER, England -- An English church official "deliberately misled" a U.S. archdiocese into harboring a pedophile priest and helping him to escape justice for a quarter of a century, said a report from a child abuse inquiry.

Canadians haven’t quite made up their minds about designer babies, but at least one Catholic scientist thinks the Church should be part of the conversation about editing human genes.

VATICAN CITY -- Theology develops through dialogue, not an aggressive defense of doctrine that seeks to impose its beliefs on others, Pope Francis said.

OTTAWA -- Free speech advocates are troubled by a House of Commons Justice Committee recommendation to reinstate a controversial section of the Canadian Human Rights Act dealing with hate speech.

It wasn’t an easy path to the priesthood for newly ordained Resurrectionist Fr. Raphael Ma.

NAPLES, Italy -- The Mediterranean Sea, which has been and again could be a route for a meeting of peoples and cultures, instead is a "border not to be crossed" between the poor South and the wealthy North, said Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople.

PARIS -- The archbishop of Paris wore a hard hat as he celebrated the first Mass in Notre-Dame Cathedral since a huge blaze devastated the landmark building in April.