World News
Vatican’s U.N. rep pushes for world action to eliminate nuclear weapons
In a series of addresses to two U.N. committees, Archbishop Bernardito Auza said nations must step up to prevent a new nuclear arms race from emerging and work to reduce growing threats to peace.
Advocate: Turkish forces doing ‘soft’ ethnic cleansing in northeast Syria
Despite Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reportedly assuring U.S. Vice President Mike Pence that his forces would not persecute religious minorities in northeastern Syria, people on the ground say minorities are being targeted.
Jewish, Christian, Muslim leaders sign declaration against euthanasia
Representatives from the Catholic and Orthodox churches and the Muslim and Jewish faiths signed a joint declaration at the Vatican reaffirming each religion's clear opposition to euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide.
Persecution of Christians worsening in Asia, Mideast
Christianity is disappearing from towns and cities in parts of the Middle East, warns a new report. It said in Asia, "Christianity is seen as not only alien but as an agent of unwanted Western influence."
With new decree, pope makes Vatican Secret Archives no longer ‘secret’
Citing the negative misinterpretations that the word "secret" implies, Pope Francis has changed the name of the Vatican Secret Archives to the Vatican Apostolic Archives.
Pope: Church cannot remain indifferent to cry of the poor
"The cry of the poor, together with that of the earth, came to us from the Amazon," the pope said during his Sunday Angelus address. "After these three weeks, we cannot pretend that we have not heard it."
Caring for common home requires deep ecological conversion, synod says
"God has given us the earth as a gift and as a task, to care for it and to answer for it; we do not own it," the synod members said in their final document, released Oct. 26.
U.S. bishop supports synod call to study diaconate for women
Bishop Robert W. McElroy of San Diego said the proposal to continue to study the possibility of opening the permanent diaconate to women -- a proposal Pope Francis said he accepted Oct. 26 -- would have implications for the church globally.
Christians must shun self-worship, pope says at synod’s final Mass
Poor people from the Amazon have shown that God's creation must be treated "not as a resource to be exploited but as a home to be preserved, with trust in God," Pope Francis said.
Synod calls for more church roles for women, but stops short of diaconate
In the Amazon, like in the rest of the world, the essential roles women play within the family, the community and the church should be valued and recognized officially, members of the synod said in their final document.