Separatists are demanding a $50,000 ransom for the release of their victims.

Bishops in Cameroon have spoken out against a recent kidnapping of clergy and laypeople at the St. Mary’s Catholic Church, an outgrowth of separatist violence hurting the country.

The Synod on Synodality of the Catholic Church faces diverse problems in diverse areas of the world, especially in the global south.

“I asked her, ‘Auntie, you’re not leaving?’ and, after a moment of silence, she answered ‘I don’t know, I want to wait,” Comboni Sister Gabriella Bottani said of her aunt, Comboni Sister Maria De Coppi.

Marianite Sister Ann Lacour said that fellow Sister Suellen Tennyson, who was kidnapped from the convent of her educational and medical mission in Yalgo, Burkina Faso, is now safe and on American soil.

Sean Callahan, president and C.E.O. of Baltimore-based Catholic Relief Services, returned last month from tours and consultations with C.R.S. partners in Ukraine, Ghana and Ethiopia.