Wildfires

VATICAN – In a letter commemorating the sixth anniversary of Pope Francis' election, the bishops of Argentina said they will ask the Pope to visit his homeland.

WARSAW, Poland – The Vatican secretary of state praised the Polish church's traditional closeness to Rome as key to its survival under hostile regimes, in a speech marking the centenary of the nation's conference of bishops and diplomatic ties with the Vatican.

A sudden shift of up to 8,000 autistic children from government-funded therapy to full-time attendance at school could put the children, teachers and other students at risk, said the chair of the Ontario Catholic School Trustees’ Association.

NEW DELHI – A Catholic bishop was hospitalized after a group of parishioners attacked him, a security guard and a priest in a five-decade-old land dispute in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

SYDNEY – A man Cardinal George Pell was convicted of sexually assaulting said he is finding it hard to "take comfort" in the cardinal's six-year jail sentence because a request to appeal the conviction is due to be heard June 5.

REGINA – The government of Saskatchewan in Canada is arguing that it should be allowed to pay for non-Catholic students to attend Catholic school, appealing a 2017 court decision that could force up to 10,000 students out of Catholic schools because they are not Catholic.

MELBOURNE, Australia – Cardinal George Pell, 77, was sentenced to six years in prison March 13, just over two weeks after a Melbourne court allowed the publication of news that he had been found guilty of sexually abusing two boys.

The heart of the Ottawa imbroglio over SNC-Lavalin can be found in remembering the time Justin Trudeau elbowed a female MP aside to get what he wanted.

THRISSUR, India – For the nearly 2,000 sisters and 200 women in formation who make up the Congregation of the Holy Family, the long wait is over.

VANCOUVER – For someone like Thad, once convicted of a sex crime and now trying to put his old life behind him, a near-record-breaking year for Project Advance means another year of funding for the prison ministry program he relies on.