International News

VATICAN CITY -- Pope Francis expressed "sadness and pain" after news broke of multiple bombs that exploded in several churches and hotels in Sri Lanka, killing at least 207 people and wounding hundreds in the capital city of Colombo and the neighbouring cities of Negombo and Batticaloa.

LIMA, Peru - The president of Peru's conference of bishops called for calm after two-time former Peruvian President Alan Garcia died April 17 after shooting himself in the head as authorities prepared to arrest him.

PARIS - A hero emerging from the Notre Dame Cathedral fire April 15 is Father Jean-Marc Fournier, chaplain of the Paris Fire Brigade, who is credited with saving a reliquary containing the crown of thorns and the Blessed Sacrament from the burning cathedral.

VATICAN CITY - As people in Paris and around the world watched in horror as flames consumed the roof of Notre Dame Cathedral, the blaze also stirred genuine emotions that could come only from witnessing the loss of beauty, art historian Elizabeth Lev said.

PARIS - Church leaders joined government officials in saying they expect that Notre Dame Cathedral's grandeur will be restored as firefighters extinguished the last flames of a fast-moving blaze that seriously damaged much of the iconic structure.

ROME - The president of France and the archbishop of Paris have vowed to rebuild Notre Dame Cathedral after a devastating fire, continuing what a professor of architecture described as the natural lifecycle of a historic building.

Updated 04/15/2019

PARIS - A major blaze engulfed the iconic Notre Dame Cathedral April 15, sending pillars of flame and billowing smoke over the center of the French capital.

VATICAN CITY - As a follow-up to a 2013 symposium on the origin and evolution of humans, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences held a workshop discussing the latest discoveries about humanity's earliest ancestors -- where they lived and what they may have looked like millions of years ago.

KARACHI, Pakistan - Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan said Asia Bibi remains in the country, negating speculation that she had already joined her family in Canada.

NEW DELHI - Indian police charged Bishop Franco Mulakkal of Jalandhar of repeatedly raping a nun in her rural convent, the Associated Press reported.