Pope Francis’ choice of Albania as the destination of his first international trip in Europe reflects his trademark pastoral approach: head to the peripheries; bring healing to the suffering. But his Sept. 21 visit to the poor, Muslim-majority nation also will highlight, to a world increasingl

‘I’m doing this for my future, for my sons to have a union,” Jamne Izquierdo said, holding up a sign demanding a better wage outside a McDonald’s restaurant on 8th Avenue and 56th Street in New York on Sept. 4. Izquierdo has worked at a different Manhattan McDonald’s fa

Amnesty International has issued a devastating report detailing summary executions, child abductions, sexual assaults, forced religious conversions and “ethnic cleansing on a historic scale” committed by the Islamic State militant group as it swept across northern Iraq from its base of o

Catholic and Orthodox patriarchs of the Middle East denounced attacks on Christians and called upon the international community to work to eradicate terrorist groups. The patriarchs met on Aug. 27 at the Maronite Catholic patriarchate at Bkerke, north of Beirut, for a special summit to address the c

The Vatican has clarified the current legal standing of its former nuncio to the Dominican Republic, Jozef Wesolowski, and has denied allegations that it acted in a manner meant to shield him from judicial proceedings in that Latin American state or in his native Poland. Wesolowski is accused of the

Vatican Radio reports that so far this year nearly 1,900 migrants have died trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea into Europe—far surpassing the 700 dead recorded in 2013 and 500 in 2012. • Cardinal Edmund C. Szoka, a former Vatican official and one-time head of the Archdiocese of Detroit