International News

SAN ANTONIO, TX. -- Crowding around a painted portrait of St. Maximilian Kolbe, the Polish friar who died in a German concentration camp during World War II, prison inmates and retreat leaders smiled for a group photo at a recent retreat.

SAO PAULO -- With a month to go before the start of the Synod of Bishops for Amazon, retired Bishop Erwin Krautler of Xingu said the Brazilian government should not fear the discussions to be held in Rome.

SOUTH ORANGE, N.J. -- A yearlong investigation by Seton Hall University confirmed that Theodore McCarrick, the laicized cardinal who had been archbishop of Newark from 1986 to 2000, had sexually harassed seminarians during his tenure as head of the archdiocese.

WASHINGTON -- Theodore McCarrick, a former cardinal and archbishop of Washington who was laicized last February following a Vatican trial on sexual abuse charges leveled against him, continued to deny he had abused anyone in an August interview with the online journal Slate.

SAO PAULO -- After denouncing the record number of wildfires in the Amazon in August and the growing deforestation of the region, the Brazilian Catholic Church is pressuring the government to guarantee the safety of several Amazonian indigenous peoples, alerting the authorities of the imminent risk of genocide in northern Brazil.

WARSAW, Poland -- Catholic bishops from Poland and Germany have warned that peace and unity are still needed in Europe, 80 years after the start of World War II.

MANCHESTER, England -- The "whole world" should put pressure on Pakistan to either scrap or reform its controversial blasphemy laws, said Asia Bibi, the Catholic mother freed after eight years on death row.

WASHINGTON -- Catholic leaders across the United States reacted with sorrow and "heavy hearts" to a mass shooting in west Texas Aug. 31 that authorities said claimed seven lives and wounded 25 others.

Contrary to statements made by Jesuit superior general Fr. Arturo Sosa, an international organization of Catholic exorcists said the existence of Satan as a real and personal being is a truth of Christian doctrine.

BEIJING, China (CNA) -- Although China announced it was ending its one-child policy in 2015, the effects of the communist regime’s controversial measure will be felt for generations to come, an expert has warned.