A series of bomb attacks rocked Cairo, Egypt, on Jan. 23, the day before the third anniversary of the street revolution in 2011 that toppled the Hosni Mubarak regime. Six people were killed, hundreds were injured, and the city’s police headquarters, strafed and scored in the aftermath of a mas

For Syria, dialogue is the only way forward, said Archbishop Silvano M. Tomasi today. Tomasi is head of the Holy See delegation at the international conference on Syria in Montreux, Switzerland. “Confronted with the indescribable suffering of the Syrian people," he said, "a sens

Bishops from North America, Europe and Africa called on international leaders to act immediately so people living in the Gaza Strip can have access to basic necessities.“Gaza is a man-made disaster, a shocking scandal, an injustice that cries out to the human community for a resolution,”

A new Web resource at www.sj2014.net, commemorating the restoration of the Society of Jesus in 1814, was launched in January. • New Mexico’s Catholic bishops said they strongly oppose the “authorization of assisted suicide by the state” after a court in Albuquerque ruled on Ja

A Vatican study group is urging world leaders to stop the flow of arms into Syria and to press for an immediate and complete cease-fire there without political preconditions. “Political transformation is needed,” its written statement said, but “it is not a precondition for ending

A Mexican bishop has rebuked the federal government for sending soldiers to seize the weapons of self-defense groups formed to fight off violent drug cartels and criminal gangs in the western state of Michoacán. Bishop Miguel Patino Velázquez of Apatzingán said the strategy was wrong and targeted

Testifying before the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child, Vatican representatives acknowledged the horror of sexual abuse by members of the clergy and, under sometimes intense questioning, insisted the Vatican was serious about protecting children.Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican observ

A Pew Research Center study issued on Jan. 14 shows another increase in hostility toward religion by most of the world’s 198 nations. The share of countries with a high or very high level of social hostility involving religion reached a six-year peak in 2012, the study said. The number of nati

Pope Francis named 19 new cardinals, including the archbishops of Westminster and Quebec and six men from his home region of Latin America, and announced a consistory for their formal induction into the College of Cardinals on Feb. 22. The selection of new cardinals does not include a prelate from t

Just a few days before news emerged that the city of Falluja in Iraq’s Anbar Province had fallen into Al Qaeda hands on Jan. 3, the Web site Iraqbodycount.com released its report on the annual death toll in Iraq. Its researchers found that 9,500 civilians died in violence in Iraq in 2013, the