International News

Church leaders gathered Sept. 21 on the 50th anniversary of the imposition of martial law in the Philippines, solemnly recalling the priests, pastors, religious and laity who were tortured and killed during the brutal regime of President Ferdinand Marcos Sr.

As Russian President Vladimir Putin drafts thousands of young men into his army and rattles his nuclear sabre at the West, Olena Kycha continues waving her Ukrainian flag amid the rush hour traffic at the corner of Yonge and Bloor Streets in downtown Toronto.

After only two days, the West Kowloon Magistrates' Court adjourned the trial of Hong Kong Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, 90, and four co-defendants, until Oct. 26.

Rookie Member of Parliament Rechie Valdez had trouble holding back her tears as she celebrated the 108th World Day of Migrants and Refugees with the Syriac Catholic community at St. Joseph’s Church in Mississauga, Ont., where she recalled her parents’ journey from the Philippines to Zambia and then on to a new life in Canada.

France’s Catholic bishops warned President Emmanuel Macron’s government that “immoral legislation” to allow euthanasia risked overturning the country’s “ethical equilibrium.”

Religious leaders in Ukraine called for safe return of prisoners of war, civilian hostages and all those who were forcibly taken to Russia.

A senior Russian priest dismissed President Vladimir Putin's threats of nuclear war as "just words," but said many young Catholics now fear being forcibly conscripted with their priests to join the war against Ukraine.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, Vatican News reported.

“Seeing video footage of hungry families in agony breaks one’s heart,” Argaw Fantu writes in an e-mail from his home base in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia.

After years of internal struggle and uncertainty, the Knights of Malta have a new papal mandate, a new constitution, a new legal code and a Canadian lawyer seeing the whole process to completion at an extraordinary general chapter of the sovereign lay religious order in the new year.