Pope Francis appointed Msgr. Leo Cushley — a longtime Vatican diplomat from the Diocese of Motherwell — to be the new archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh, Scotland.

Panelists at a religious freedom session on Pakistan called for reform of the nation’s laws, calling the situation for minorities dire. In June alone, 47 religious minorities were killed in Pakistan, according to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.

Nearly 600 Native American Catholics from 37 states joined in the annual Tekakwitha Conference gathering in El Paso July 17-22.

With hands moving quickly through the air, members of the International Catholic Deaf Association signed all the responses in unison for a July 16 Mass celebrated at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington as part of their seventh biennial conference.

Hundreds of thousands of cheering people welcomed Pope Francis to Brazil July 22 as he made the first international trip of his pontificate to his native region of Latin America.

Here is the schedule for the trip as released by the Vatican. Times listed are local, with Eastern Daylight Time in parentheses:

Inside a rustic chapel 4,000 miles away from his diocese, Bishop Martin J. Amos of Davenport, Iowa, presented a peace award to Jean Vanier for fostering total acceptance of people as they are — with and without disabilities.

Human-centered migration policy empowers individuals, promotes security and produces the best and most sustainable outcomes for all people involved, according to speakers at a U.N. event July 15.

Britain’s two leading archbishops said the new same-sex marriage law represented “a watershed in English law and heralds a profound social change.” “The new act breaks the existing legal links between the institution of marriage and sexual complementarity,” said a statement by Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Westminster, president of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, and Archbishop Peter Smith of Southwark, vice president.

Many Catholics who identify themselves as either conservatives or progressives will be disappointed in Pope Francis, whose program of spiritual renewal, doctrinal continuity and emphasis on the poor fits none of the traditional molds, a top German cardinal said.