A still-unidentified assailant entered the cathedral's Blood of Christ chapel and threw an explosive device. Flames engulfed the chapel, severely charring a 382-year old image of the crucified Christ.

In a draft of a letter to be presented to the executive committee of the bishops’ conference, more than 150 bishops accuse the federal government of “inaction and omission” in combating the coronavirus pandemic and of “inability and incapacity” to face the crisis.

National churches that face the most difficulties are in those countries that already had serious economic problems before the pandemic started.

A teacher in Guatemala relies on his bicycle to be his transportation and his classroom. Each day he pedals among the cornfields of Santa Cruz del Quiché to give individual instruction to his sixth-grade students.

The diocese said the respirator, delivered to the Campanha de Maraba Hospital July 12 by the apostolic nunciature in Brazil, was one of four sent by the pope to Brazil, which has the second-highest number of coronavirus cases in the world.

The testimony was offered at the trial of Inocente Orlando Montano, a former colonel in the army of El Salvador, on trial in Spain for the murders of six Jesuits, their housekeeper and her daughter on the campus of a Catholic university in 1989.