A missing priest was found shot dead off the side of a highway in western Mexico days after he was kidnapped from his parish residence, state prosecutors said on Sept. 25. He was the third Roman Catholic priest to be slain in Mexico in the last week.The Michoacan state Attorney General's Office

In August, the Wijngaards Institute for Catholic Research, based in the United Kingdom, published a report in anticipation of the 50th anniversary of “Humanae Vitae,” the papal encyclical that upheld the ban on the use of contraceptives. The statement, signed by more than 150 Catholic sc

Speakers addressing the Helsinki Commission, a Congressional advisory group that monitors global human rights conditions, on Sept. 22 called upon the United States to step up efforts to provide financial support to nongovernmental organizations that serve thousands of displaced people in northern Ir

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights released a report on Sept. 7 that calls for reining in religious liberty protections in favor of nondiscrimination statutes aimed at protecting L.G.B.T. Americans. “The phrases ‘religious liberty’ and ‘religious freedom’ will stand fo

With a Mass near the tomb of St. Ignatius Loyola in Rome, 215 Jesuits from around the world gathered on Oct. 2 for a general congregation to elect a new superior general to replace Adolfo Nicolás, S.J., who is retiring. • Brazil’s Indigenous Missionary Council in a new report highlighted

Small sums of financial assistance can help stabilize housing for low-income people and stave off homelessness, with its numerous related social problems, a University of Notre Dame study concluded. Targeted emergency financial assistance of a few hundred dollars for rent, security deposits, utility

Archbishop Socrates Villegas urged Catholic lawmakers not to support “any attempt to restore the death penalty."

Honoring Star Trek’s 50th anniversary in September, the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano said the popular series gave the world a model of peace, tolerance and cooperation at a time of global tensions. • After a Polish immigrant was beaten to death by a teenage mob in Harlow,

AsiaNews, the Rome-based missionary news agency, reported on Sept. 8 that Chinese authorities had taken Coadjutor Bishop Peter Shao Zhumin of Wenzhou, China, out of the diocese to northwest China “on a trip.” Local faithful said it was to prevent him from taking possession of the diocese

Large-scale mining and extractive operations are failing to deliver economic benefits while causing environmental damage and human suffering throughout Latin America.