Archbishop of St. Louis urges peace in streets

The Obama administration announced plans in early October to allow minors to apply for refugee status from within El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, in an effort to discourage them from making the dangerous trek to enter the United States illegally. • On Sept. 29, during a ceremony at Chicago

Cardinal Walter Kasper of Germany, the author of a controversial proposal to make it easier for divorced and civilly remarried Catholics to receive Communion, said on Oct. 1 that he believes Pope Francis backs the measure but would not apply it without support from the bishops at the upcoming synods

Catholic Relief Services has committed more than $1.5 million in private funds to continue its emergency response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, which has so far killed 2,800 people. While the World Health Organization has declared the outbreak contained in Senegal and Nigeria, the number of

Iraqi refugees who fled Islamic State violence after Mosul was overrun say it will be difficult ever to return home, despite concerns by the church that more Christians are fleeing their ancient homeland in the Middle East. “I thought I was living in a kind of dystopian end-of-times film,&rdqu

Expanded airstrikes on Islamic State positions in Syria serve as little more than a recruiting tool for extremists and place more innocent people in danger, the leadership of Pax Christi International said on Sept. 23. The three top leaders of the Catholic peace organization also called upon the wor

Returning to her home in Miami after a month-long assignment to West Africa, Dr. Aileen Marty, a former U.S. Navy doctor and expert in infectious diseases, said on Sept. 22 that the deadly Ebola outbreak will be contained only if all ports of entry in the region are adequately screened for infected

South Sudan’s bishops reiterated their call for an end to fighting in their country and warned of a humanitarian disaster. “The fighting and killing must stop immediately and unconditionally,” the bishops said on Sept. 25, at the end of a three-day meeting that coincided with the r

After a Vatican investigation, Pope Francis removed a Paraguayan bishop from his post as head of the Diocese of Ciudad del Este because of “serious pastoral reasons.” But the bishop shot back later the same day, charging in an open letter that he was the victim of an ideological campaign

According to a Vatican statement released on Sept. 20, Pope Francis has created a “special commission for the study of reform of the canonical matrimonial process” that will seek to simplify the procedure, “making it more streamlined, and safeguarding the principle of the indi