Trees Grow in Vegetation-Needy African Nations, Thanks to Conservation Movement  

“My name is Arouna Kandé,” says the young man from Senegal. “I am a climate refugee.” This brief introduction appears near the start of “The Letter: A Message for our Earth.” This 2022 Vatican-produced documentary is about “Laudato Si’” — the encyclical from Pope Francis sounding the alarm about climate change.

40 Years Ago, Brave Nuns Shielded a Maryknoll Msgr. From a Guatemalan Hit Squad

n the fall of 1984, Msgr. John Vesey was a Maryknoll missionary working with the indigenous people of southwestern Guatemala, but he became deathly ill with pneumonia. While bedridden, he slipped in and out of consciousness.
In moments of lucidity he saw, standing over him, Sister Alba Estela Orellana and her fellow Carmelite nuns. The Guatemalan sisters helped him minister to the Tz’utujil people of Santiago Atitlán. But Msgr.

‘Cabrini’ Shows Patron Saint of Immigrants Living ‘Life in Hope’

Mention the word “masterpiece” and one could get eyed for exaggeration, yet one group of filmmakers believe they hit the mark with their biopic about Francesca Xavier Cabrini, patron saint of immigrants.  “Cabrini,” distributed by Angel Studios, opens in theaters on March 8, International Women’s Day. 

First U.S. Black Catholic Church Has Persevered Since 1841   

Just north of New Orleans’ French Quarter — on soil once worked by slaves — stands a Catholic church believed to be the oldest black parish in the U.S. St. Augustine Church, established in 1841, has been a sanctuary in the turbulence of emancipation, Jim Crow laws, the civil rights movement, and Hurricane Katrina.