International News

AUCKLAND, New Zealand -- In a first for New Zealand, a permanent deacon participated in the episcopal ordination Mass of his son.

Greater love has no one than to lay their life down for their friends, said Jesus. 

SYDNEY -- Catholic dioceses in Australia began canceling Masses as the government limited indoor gatherings to fewer than 100 people in mid-March in an effort to contain COVID-19.

LYON, France -- A former French priest was sentenced to jail for five years for sexual assaults against Scouts.

ROME -- About half of the U.S. seminarians and priests living at the Pontifical North American College and the Casa Santa Maria in Rome have left the locked-down city, the rector said.

ROME -- A number of priests and religious women have been among the nearly 2,000 people who have died in Italy because of illness connected with COVID-19.

WASHINGTON -- A priest who serves as director of the Justice, Development and Peace Commission in his diocese in northern Nigeria cited an ongoing series of religious freedom violations in his region of the country, which is majority Muslim.

AMMAN, Jordan -- A group of priests in Lebanon have quarantined themselves while a pair of their elders are fighting coronavirus. A Catholic hospital in another part of the tiny Mediterranean country has also seen a spread of the COVID-19 as fear of the disease grips the cash-strapped nation.

SYDNEY -- After two days of hearings, the seven judges of Australia's High Court reserved their decision on whether to hear an appeal of Cardinal George Pell's conviction for the 1996 sexual assault of two choir boys.

VATICAN CITY — In co-operation with Italian emergency measures, the Vatican has closed St. Peter's Square and Basilica to tourists starting March 10 through April 3.