An official with Caritas Mexico, the church's charitable arm, says the storm left a mess in parts of the dioceses serving the western states of Colima, Jalisco and Nayarit with flooding and property damage, but mostly impacted small settlements and rural areas—which were being provided with assistance from parishes diocesan collections.

Parents and classmates of the missing students have taken their cause abroad as protests in Mexico peter out and the Mexican government tries to turn the page on a crime that sullied the country's international image and sent the president's popularity plummeting.

"Please rid us of this corruption and the leaders who have taken us down the wrong paths," prayed Father Hugo Estrada. "We ask that you be with this great nation of Guatemala."

President Otto Perez Molina said that he would not resign and would remain in office.

Fernando Fernande brought toilet paper, soap and food to the Palmasola prison, where his son has been locked up for the past two years.Other families waited outside the gates with wheelbarrows full of everything from sausages to blankets to charcoal for cooking. The supplies, Fernande said, were to

Catholic officials and observers expressed hope the pope's July 8-10 visit to Bolivia offers the opportunity to turn the page on nearly 10 years of mutual suspicions, public criticisms and the church losing its previously privileged position in a newly approved constitution.

Jesuit Father Luis Espinal was returning from a movie in March 1980 when he was intercepted, tortured and killed. His remains were found in a landfill. Paramilitaries were blamed for his death. Outrage ensued, with an estimated 70,000 Bolivians attending his burial in La Paz."I think it probabl

Belfries and spires poke the sky in this ramshackle city of impromptu developments, rutted roads and brick buildings, billed by locals as one of the highest in the world at more than 13,000 feet above sea level.In the Villa Adela neighborhood, an onion dome towers over the Cuerpo de Cristo parish&md

'Whether we want to accept it or not, Cuba is undergoing a transformation.'

Some Mexicans used Ash Wednesday to rebuke authorities who insist that 43 students were kidnapped, killed and then had their bodies burned in a garbage dump and ashes tossed in a river.Classmates and families of the missing students reject the explanation of what happened. So on Feb. 18, in predomin