Call to Service

SYDNEY -- The Australian states of Victoria and Tasmania have become the latest in the country to pass legislation criminalizing priests who fail to report the abuse of children disclosed during confession. The country's six states and two territories are all expected have such laws in place in coming months.

VATICAN CITY -- Pope Francis called on more religious orders of men and women, as well as foundations and benefactors, to get involved and help an international network of women religious in the fight against human trafficking.

VATICAN CITY -- Pope Francis told volunteers and social workers that they can guard against discouragement by always being with Christ when working with people in difficulty.

As at least 60,000 people marched on United Nations headquarters Sept. 20 and hundreds of thousands of students around the world demanded climate solutions, Canadian Catholics launched a chapter of the Global Catholic Climate Movement with calls for politicians to confront climate change.

QUITO, Ecuador -- One of the challenges for bishops at the Amazon synod will be finding ways to meet the spiritual needs of the region’s people.

BOA VISTA, Brazil -- Driving up the BR401, it’s hard not to be startled by the sight of a giant soy farm stretching out on both sides of the highway — the empty land is parched and denuded in mid-summer, after the crop is in. 

MANAUS, Brazil -- As a caçique or chief of the Apurinã people, Xytara Apurinã has a pretty clear-eyed view of her people’s position in the Amazonian metropolis of Manaus. 

MANAUS, Brazil -- For Enock Barroso Tenente, what’s at stake at the upcoming Synod of Bishops on the Amazon is life as he knows it.

SAO PAULO -- Less than two weeks before the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon was scheduled to begin at the Vatican, the Brazilian bishops' Indigenous Missionary Council reported that the number of indigenous land invasions and indigenous murdered in Brazil in 2018 soared.

ROME -- While his responsibilities are greater and his prayer list longer, Pope Francis said he's basically the same person he was before he was elected in 2013, so he still goes to confession every two weeks.