The 30,000 Haitian refugees who surged across the U.S.-Mexico border last summer fled an earthquake back home, but not the one that hit their homeland a few weeks earlier. The plight of these people actually began on Jan. 12, 2010 following an even more devastating quake near Port-au-Prince.
Chongli, a popular resort town and venue for the main skiing events during the upcoming Winter Olympics, holds a history of persecution and massacre of Catholics in the region during the imperial and communist regimes.
All Christians are invited to pray for unity and continue to journey together, said Cardinals Mario Grech, general secretary of the Synod of the Bishops, and Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.
Pope Francis is sending thousands of dollars in relief aid to the Philippines after a devastating typhoon struck the Southeast Asian archipelago in December.
In a time when social networks can tend to divide people, Christian media must instead work to unite men and women, Pope Francis said.
When the goal of Christian unity seems far off, “let us remind ourselves that we are making this journey not as those who already possess God but as those who continue to seek him,” Pope Francis told members of an ecumenical pilgrimage from Finland.
Two priests in Ukraine asked Western church leaders for support, especially in anticipation of a widely expected Russian invasion.
Last month, as Rozita Gerhardt helped Afghan refugees complete their asylum applications, she thought of her mother, who years ago fled Iran, and how this was just the first step of what will be a lifelong process.
Pope Francis approved “Pilgrims of Hope” as the motto for the Holy Year 2025.
Those who are stubbornly skeptical of science and those who eagerly embrace science as infallible both have a dangerous misunderstanding of the nature of science, a U.S. Jesuit astronomer said.
