BEIRUT - Myrna calmly begins describing the challenges she faces as a Syrian refugee in Lebanon, but soon breaks down in tears over the enormous problems that have upset her family life: her husband has no work and her 7-year-old son with a heart condition now wets in his sleep because of stress. Some days the family goes without eating.

VATICAN CITY - Welcoming thousands of migrants and refugees to the Vatican for their own Year of Mercy celebration, Pope Francis urged them to resist everything that would rob them of hope and joy.

BEIRUT - While the flow of migrants into Europe and the West has sparked controversy, Lebanon continues to bear the brunt of absorbing massive numbers of refugees. A commonly cited figure is that one in four people in Lebanon is displaced from Syria.

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis called for abolishing the death penalty worldwide, lifting the burden of debt on poor nations, global aid policies that respect life and revamped laws that welcome and integrate migrants.

Newspapers typically select a “person of the year” based on noble deeds or towering accomplishments. The world certainly abounds with such people, but rather than acclaim one of these for 2015 we instead commemorate Alan Kurdi.

VATICAN CITY - Indifference to the crises and tragedies today's migrants and refugees are facing lead to complicity when people remain silent or refuse to act, Pope Francis said.

WASHINGTON - Pope Francis touched down in Washington on Sept. 22 after a historic visit to Cuba, the first Latin American Pope in history on his first trip to the United States. He comes “as a migrant,” as a top papal aide put it, on a six-day visit filled with great expectations for the popular pontiff but also numerous challenges.

JERUSALEM - Leaders of the European bishops' conferences expressed solidarity with people of the Middle East, especially those being forced from their homes, and called on European states to act generously, justly and respectfully toward the influx of migrants and refugees now reaching their shores.

Church leaders and organizations are demanding stronger action from the Canadian government in response to the Syrian refugee crisis.

MANCHESTER, England - The European Union must adopt a common asylum policy "without delay" because it is unacceptable for refugees to "drown and suffocate" at the fringes of the bloc, said the European bishops.

Pictures of a dead three-year-old Syrian child washed ashore in Turkey made the world weep, but will little Alan Kurdi’s lifeless body move world populations and their governments to act?

VATICAN CITY - Given the ongoing crisis of people fleeing from war and poverty, Pope Francis asked every parish and religious community in Europe to take in a family of refugees as a concrete sign of hope and God's mercy.

OXFORD, England - Catholic aid agencies have urged Europeans not to turn against migrants seeking refuge from Syria and other countries, in what media reports describe as the continent's greatest refugee movement since the Second World War.

LONDON - Images of drowned refugees are causing the British people to cry out for a more generous response to the migrant crisis engulfing Europe, said an English cardinal.

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis joined Austrian church leaders in praying for the 71 refugees found dead in an abandoned truck near Vienna and he condemned the smuggling of migrants as an offense "against the whole human family."