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

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

Tensions between student demonstrators and authorities in Beijing rose as protests continued for broader democratic rights in Hong Kong in October. On Oct. 3 protesters accused police of allowing pro-government “thugs” to assault them in the city’s Mong Kok district.“Nothing

Iraqi refugees who fled Islamic State violence after Mosul was overrun say it will be difficult ever to return home, despite concerns by the church that more Christians are fleeing their ancient homeland in the Middle East. “I thought I was living in a kind of dystopian end-of-times film,&rdqu

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