France’s Catholic bishops have urged citizens to accept the fact that their country is no longer culturally homogeneous.

Commenting on elections planned for Nov. 28, the Coptic bishop of Luxor said that Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood were among the most organized political groups.

Perhaps in response to social unrest, executions in Iran have spiked this year, with more than 320 tallied by the end of June.

Nobel Peace Price-winner Wangari Maatthai, founder of the Greenbelt Movement, which planted more than 30 million trees in Kenya, died on Sept. 25.

On his first state visit to his German homeland, Pope Benedict XVI warned that godlessness and religious indifference were undermining the moral foundations of society.

Chaplains from faiths morally opposed to homosexual behavior fear they will be “marginalized and even punished” for being true to their faith.