International News

Two days after news broke Father Marko Rupnik was incardinated by Slovenia's Koper diocese, the Vatican announced Oct. 27 that Pope Francis has lifted the statute of limitations on abuse accusations against Father Rupnik to allow for a formal investigation of the case by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.

In a media world that portrays the Israel-Palestine conflict as simple hostility between people of the Judaic and Muslim faiths, the Christian presence in Palestine is minimized or erased.

For Mother María del Pilar Llerena Vargas, "it was an image that will be very difficult to erase." The Sister of Charity of the Incarnate Word from Peru, who is serving in the Catholic parish in Gaza, recalled the pain of watching the funeral of Christians killed in an Oct. 19 blast at a Greek Orthodox church.

President Joe Biden and Pope Francis spoke by phone Oct. 22 to discuss the conflict in Israel and Gaza and facilitating a path to "durable peace" in the region, according to the press offices of both leaders.

An explosion at the St. Porphyrios Greek Orthodox Church campus in Gaza has left the administration building in ruins, and at least 17 people dead, though numbers have not yet been officially confirmed.

The Vatican, especially Pope Francis, must double its efforts and urge the international community to end the massacre of Palestinians killed in Gaza in the Israel-Hamas war, Palestine's ambassador to Denmark said.

Catholics in Russia support Pope Francis’ frequent prayers for “the martyred people of Ukraine,” the head of the Catholic Church in Russia said.

Scholars at a conference examining the wartime pontificate of Pope Pius XII presented a mixed bag on how the Vatican responded to the horrors of the Holocaust.

Nicaragua has expelled a dozen priests held as political prisoners as the increasingly tyrannical regime continues sending clergy into exile and cracking down on the Catholic Church.

Amid the devastating violence in Israel and Gaza following Hamas’ deadly surprise attack on Oct. 7, with thousands of casualties on both sides, the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem has vowed to intensify its already considerable efforts in the Holy Land.