Vatican to issue guidelines to bishops’ conferences about the phenomenon

Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission has called on Pope Francis to issue an apology to First Nations, Inuit, and Metis survivors, families, and communities for the Church's role in the spiritual, cultural, emotional, physical, and sexual abuse of children in Catholic-run residential schools. The commission was established under the 2007 Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement,…

Guatemala’s bishops have called for the country's electoral law to be overhauled and for political parties to wipe out corruption. In a pastoral letter, the bishops’ conference said it supported protesters who have held demonstrations across the country during the past month, demanding that President Otto Perez Molina, a former military general elected in 2011,…

French Catholics have called on the Church to support a campaign to stop Western companies from buying oil from Islamic State (IS). Arguing that oil purchases from Islamic State are effectively funding slaughter, Joseph Thouvenel, vice president of the French Confederation of Christian Workers and head of a new association, New Martyrs, says that 84…

As many as 135,000 people, according to organisers, took part in a candlelight vigil in Hong Kong to commemorate the crushing of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. Describing the victims of the Tiananmen massacre as "our martyrs" who must not be forgotten, Cardinal Joseph Zen, bishop emeritus of Hong Kong, said, “Some Catholics say that…

The Christians of Bosnia-Herzegovina have a duty to forgive the cruelty of the Yugoslav Civil War, but not to forget it, according to Pope Francis. Speaking to a gathering of priests, religious, and seminarians at Sarajevo’s cathedral as part of a one-day visit to the Bosnian capital, the Pontiff laid aside his prepared text after…