Captors released a Franciscan priest who was among about 20 Christians kidnapped from a Syrian village near the border with Turkey. Father Hanna Jallouf was being held under house arrest in a religious residence in Knayeh, a small Christian village in northwestern Syria, according to a statement on

In a blunt assessment of the Iraqi government’s response to the suffering of Christians from the northern Nineveh province, a leading Chaldean Catholic bishop said, “Our people have been abandoned.”The Chaldean Archbishop of Erbil, Bashar Warda, blasted both the Iraqi government an

This year has seen a remarkable spike in the number of Cubans arriving in South Florida.

The Obama administration announced plans in early October to allow minors to apply for refugee status from within El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, in an effort to discourage them from making the dangerous trek to enter the United States illegally. • On Sept. 29, during a ceremony at Chicago

Catholic Relief Services has committed more than $1.5 million in private funds to continue its emergency response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, which has so far killed 2,800 people. While the World Health Organization has declared the outbreak contained in Senegal and Nigeria, the number of

Cardinal Walter Kasper of Germany, the author of a controversial proposal to make it easier for divorced and civilly remarried Catholics to receive Communion, said on Oct. 1 that he believes Pope Francis backs the measure but would not apply it without support from the bishops at the upcoming synods