"Today we are remembering the priests, the journalists, the social activists and the young people who have died violently," Fr. Jorge Atilano González told his congregation.

Cardinal Claudio Hummes was one of Brazil’s main religious leaders and a strong advocate for the poor.

When asked if he felt he had changed during his papacy, the pope said he was told by several people “that things that were dormant in my personality came to the surface; that I became more merciful.”

Human rights in Nicaragua have deteriorated since a political crisis in 2018 pitted the increasingly authoritarian Ortega government against democracy and political reform advocates.

The bishops’ statement followed the slayings of two Jesuits and a person they were protecting in their parish—a crime attributed to a local crime boss in a part of the country dominated by drug cartels.

Following the imprisonment of the leader of La Luz Del Mundo, a Christian denomination in Mexico, for sexual abuse, denominational leadership reiterated its support for Naasón Joaquín García.