Mary Jurgensmeier, a member of St. Peter Catholic Church in Greeley, Colo., said she knows people in her community who have lost everything.
Three young women enter the room with their heads lowered, suspicious of the visitors waiting to see them and hear their stories. They seem uncomfortable with the attention and divert their gaze downward, fidgeting with their hands, as they take their seats at the end of a long table.
The Archdiocese of Acapulco has suspended church services and instructed priests to turn their parishes into support centers after torrential rains on one of the busiest weekends of the year left the city cut off from other parts of Mexico.
“It is not my work only. It is the Lord’s.” Such was the summation of Sister Angelique Namaika, a member of the Augustine Sisters of Dungu and Doruma, as she spoke to reporters in an international conference call upon winning the Nansen Refugee Award bestowed annually by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.
A larger-than-life model of Blessed John Paul II as a younger man reaches out from the top of the exterior steps that ascend to All Saints Church, Warsaw’s largest church. At the statue’s feet one recent summer afternoon sat a bouquet of plastic red roses, and candles lit in red heart-shaped vases.
Bishops in southern Philippines have condemned rebels’ use of hostages as human shields in gunfights with government troops.
People who judge and criticize others are hypocrites and cowards who are unable to face their own defects, Pope Francis said.
A senior Catholic priest in the Central African Republic has warned of growing clashes between Christians and Muslims, and urged the international community to act “within weeks” to prevent the country’s breakup.
Picking up the telephone and calling people out of the blue is no big deal for Pope Francis, according to a Vatican official.
Germany’s Limburg Diocese pledged “dialogue and transparency” after a former Vatican nuncio was sent to defuse complaints of extravagance against Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst.