Women and their role in the Church continues to be a key topic of discussion at the halfway point of this month’s Synod, with many inside the hall pushing for female inclusion in positions of influence and leadership.

While Arturo Mari may have started his professional photography career in the Vatican taking pictures of Pope Pius XII when he was just 16 years old, Mari’s work commanded the world’s attention when he accompanied history’s most travel-minded pope, St. John Paul II, on more than 100 pastoral visits outside Italy.

At a 2007 meeting of the Latin American bishops in Aparecida, Brazil – where then-Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio would play an instrumental role that would later serve as a catalyst for his election to the papacy – he’s said to have remarked that “Oscar Romero is saint and a martyr, and if I became pope I would canonize him.”

According to the Catholic theology of sainthood, canonization amounts to a judgment that a particular individual is already in heaven enjoying the beatific vision, meaning the unmediated presence of God – to quote St. Paul in 1 Corinthians, no longer seeing the splendor of God “indistinctly, as in a mirror, but face to face.”

Catholic clergy and laypeople have been expelled from Myanmar’s northern Shan state by a China-backed ethnic minority army. Two Salesian priests, three nuns from the Missionary Society of St. Paul and three lay teachers were ordered by the United Wa State Army to leave the Wa Hills, which border China, reported ucanews.com.

Bishops from Chile and Puerto Rico told the Synod of Bishops that the Church must do more to help young people live out their faith and involve them in the life of the Church rather than leaving them to find guidance elsewhere.

From its high majestic mountains, picturesque villages and coastal towns to its bustling cities, Lebanon is rich in breathtaking scenery, cultural diversity and religious sites.