“They claim to know on their own what truth is, but Catholic doctrine is not a closed system, but a living tradition that develops,” Cardinal Walter Kasper of Germany told the Italian daily Il Mattino on Sept. 18. Cardinal Kasper was responding to a new book featuring contributions by fi

The deaths of up to 500 mostly Palestinian and Syrian migrants and refugees could be an act of mass murder, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, said on Sept. 19. Hundreds of migrant workers and refugees from Gaza and Syrian conflicts were aboard a boat that left

According to a Vatican statement released on Sept. 20, Pope Francis has created a “special commission for the study of reform of the canonical matrimonial process” that will seek to simplify the procedure, “making it more streamlined, and safeguarding the principle of the indi

President Obama’s decision to delay executive measures on immigration until after the November elections drew sharp rebukes from some of the most vocal advocates for immigrants, while others continued to urge specific actions toward reform and analysts weighed whether the delay hurts or helps

In an address at the Human Rights Council in Geneva on Sept. 11, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Holy See’s permanent observer at the United Nations, described the tragic forms of contemporary slavery, such as “massive kidnappings and sale of young girls under the false premises of religi

At least 124,000 migrants entered Italy in the first eight months of this year, more than twice the 60,000 who arrived in all of 2013. The vast majority landed first in Sicily. Seeing to the new arrivals’ immediate needs in Sicily’s multiple port cities is now a joint effort between chur