An official with Caritas Mexico, the church's charitable arm, says the storm left a mess in parts of the dioceses serving the western states of Colima, Jalisco and Nayarit with flooding and property damage, but mostly impacted small settlements and rural areas—which were being provided with assistance from parishes diocesan collections.

The arson, at St. Joseph specifically and at the churches in general, left Father Wunderlich with "question marks. I don't know what else to say. The first question that comes to my mind is, 'Why would anybody want to do it.' I'm sure that's on the mind of police officers and arson specialists. What would be the motivation for something like this?"

Allegations of abuse were described in a new book, "Mitad Monjes, Mitad Soldados" ("Half Monks, Half Priests"), by Pedro Salinas, a former member of Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, who interviewed about 30 other former members.

The appeal, addressed to negotiators preparing for the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Paris Nov. 30-Dec. 11, was a response to Pope Francis' letter on the environment and an expression of "the anxiety of all the people, all the churches all over the world" regarding how, "unless we are careful and prudent, we are heading for disaster."

CRS' Sean Callahan urged Congress to consider additional funding relief along with the Middle East Refugee Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act that will make $1 billion available to refugee aid and resettlement.

“We welcome this modest bipartisan first step to reform our nation's broken criminal justice system,” Catholic leaders wrote to Congress.