A Pew Research Center study issued on Jan. 14 shows another increase in hostility toward religion by most of the world’s 198 nations. The share of countries with a high or very high level of social hostility involving religion reached a six-year peak in 2012, the study said. The number of nati

Bishops from North America, Europe and Africa called on international leaders to act immediately so people living in the Gaza Strip can have access to basic necessities.“Gaza is a man-made disaster, a shocking scandal, an injustice that cries out to the human community for a resolution,”

Just a few days before news emerged that the city of Falluja in Iraq’s Anbar Province had fallen into Al Qaeda hands on Jan. 3, the Web site Iraqbodycount.com released its report on the annual death toll in Iraq. Its researchers found that 9,500 civilians died in violence in Iraq in 2013, the

Fides, the Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies, reports that 22 pastoral care workers were killed worldwide in 2013, almost double the number who were killed the year before. For the fifth consecutive year, Latin America had the highest number of such deaths. In 2013, 19 priests,

United Nations peacekeepers and officials struggled to contain two ongoing crises in Africa as the New Year began. Hastily arranged peace talks to end the sudden conflict in South Sudan began in Ethiopia as the world’s newest nation sank deeper into a de facto civil war. Meanwhile, in the neig

In the first nine-and-a-half months of Pope Francis’ pontificate, more than 6.6 million people participated in papal events at the Vatican—three times the number who visited during all of 2012. • Antonios Aziz Mina, the Coptic Catholic bishop of Giza, Egypt, said terrorist attacks w