Catholic aid groups have challenged European plans for tough measures to curb the flow of migrants and refugees across the Mediterranean, urging a more humanitarian response.  European governments are “at least partly responsible” for conditions in Libya and other countries, because of past interventions, and should be doing more to promote stable development there, according…

Two millennia of ties to their homeland keep Syria's Christian population from fleeing en masse, according to Aleppo’s Melkite Catholic Archbishop Jean-Clement Jeanbart. Speaking in Washington as part of a visit to raise awareness and funds for his ‘Build to Stay’ initiative, which aims to help Syrian Christians rebuild their lives and livelihoods, he said…

Blessed Junipero Serra was a “working-class missionary” who deserves to be made a saint and to have his record as a defender of native peoples made known, according to Archbishop Jose H. Gomez of Los Angeles. Acknowledging that Pope Francis’ plan to canonise the 18th-century Franciscan in September “has opened old wounds and revived bitter…

Catholic workers in the contested border region between Sudan and South Sudan are launching new efforts to make peace between the two groups that claim the isolated and oil-rich region of Abyei. Although South Sudan became independent from Sudan in 2011, several border areas have remained in dispute. A planned 2005 referendum on the region’s…

It could take 20 years for the Belgian Church to regain its credibility, according to Auxiliary Bishop Jean Kockerols of Mechelen-Brussels, who says the president of Belgium’s bishops’ conference wants Catholics to respect a court judgment against him for failing to act on abuse allegations. Liege’s Appeal Court ruled that Archbishop André-Joseph Léonard of Mechelen-Brussels…