International News

WASHINGTON -- In a unanimous decision June 17, the Supreme Court said that a Catholic social service agency should not have been excluded from Philadelphia's foster care program because it did not accept same-sex couples as foster parents.

YANGON, Myanmar -- Thousands of people have taken refuge in churches and convents as Myanmar's military continues to fight local resistance forces.

WASHINGTON -- The Women’s Health Protection Act, introduced in the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House on June 8, “would invalidate nearly all existing state limitations on abortion,” said Jennifer Popik, director of federal legislation for National Right to Life.

VATICAN CITY -- As the remains of a rickety boat, pulled from the floor of the Mediterranean Sea, were enshrined as a memorial to the hundreds of migrants who died when it sank, Pope Francis prayed that such tragedies would “challenge everyone’s conscience and foster the growth of a more supportive humanity that tears down the wall of indifference.”

LONDON, England -- A record number of abortions took place in England and Wales in 2020, according to new statistics.

YANGON, Myanmar -- Another church in Kayah state, a Catholic stronghold in eastern Myanmar, was damaged by indiscriminate shelling by the military.

PHILADELPHIA -- Imploring Catholics of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia to return to the celebration of Mass in person, Archbishop Nelson J. Pérez launched a major initiative for that purpose on Pentecost Sunday, May 23.

HONG KONG -- The protesters killed in Tiananmen Square in mainland China on June 4, 1989, used to be remembered in Hong Kong with an annual candlelight vigil in the city’s expansive Victoria Park, attended by crowds as big as 130,000, all holding flickering candles.

The recent arrest of a Vatican-approved bishop, priests and seminarians in north-central China came as a shocking development, if not surprising, as religious persecution in the communist-led country has continued to intensify under President Xi Jinping.

ROME -- Cardinal Charles Bo of Yangon, Myanmar, pleaded for an end to violence after a deadly mortar attack in his country claimed the lives of four people sheltering in a church.