International News

OTTAWA – The run-up to a general election in Nigeria has triggered concerns about growing violence and an increase in Christian persecution, said the national director of Nigeria’s Pontifical Mission Society.

VATICAN – Italian Archbishop Luigi Ventura, 74, a Vatican diplomat who once served in Canada, Chile and western Africa, is under investigation by police in Paris for allegedly sexually assaulting a city official.

PARKLAND, Fla. – One day before the anniversary of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, neighboring Mary Help of Christians School held a prayer service to pay tribute to the victims.

LETICIA, Colombia – Rafael Noteno Capinoa, a Kichwa Indian, worries about what could happen to the forest around his village on Peru's Napo River if an oil company begins drilling in the area.

VATICAN – Pope Francis has named Cardinal Kevin J. Farrell, 71, the prefect of the Dicastery for Laity, the Family and Life, to serve as the camerlengo or chamberlain of the Holy Roman Church.

ROME – Sustainable development in rural areas is key to making poverty and hunger a thing of the past, Pope Francis said.

VATICAN – The president of Microsoft, Brad Smith, told Pope Francis that a "human voice" was needed to speak up in the world of technology today.

Ever since Pope Francis announced in September that he was calling the heads of the world’s bishops’ conferences to Rome for an unprecedented summit on sexual abuse, expectations have been mounting.

BANGKOK – Recent credible sexual abuse allegations in India and East Timor have underscored the fears of many in the church that clerical sex abuse is rife in South, Southeast and North Asia, which have a collective population of at least 120 million Catholics.

SAO PAOLO – Responding to news reports that the Brazilian intelligence agency was monitoring the Catholic Church, the secretary-general of the bishops' conference downplayed the idea that prelates would use the October Synod of Bishops on the Amazon to criticize their government's policies.