MONTREAL – Vocations to the priesthood may be lagging in North America and Europe, but the ranks of Scalabrinian priests are swelling in other parts of the world, according to Fr. Joseph Fugolo.

OTTAWA – Bishop-elect Scott McCaig traces the beginning of his priestly vocation to a chance glimpse of a sign on the side of the road.

The Diocese of Hamilton is picking up the pieces after a Chaldean Catholic priest admitted to gambling away $500,000 of donations meant for refugees.

VATICAN CITY - The bishop who leads the apostolic vicariate that includes Yemen said he has "strong indications" that Salesian Father Tom Uzhunnalil "is still alive in the hands of his kidnappers."

PARIS - French Prime Minister Manuel Valls called on a prominent cardinal to “assume his responsibilities” amid widening allegations of a pedophilia cover-up targeting Lyon’s Roman Catholic diocese.

VATICAN CITY - Although the number is not high, it is no longer "exceptional" to have priests turn down an appointment as bishop, said Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet, prefect of the Congregation for Bishops.

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador - San Salvador Archbishop Jose Escobar Alas said church files on human rights violations committed during the civil war are available to help to find the truth and bring about justice in the killings of six Jesuit priests and two women, murdered in November 1989.

MANCHESTER, England - A 78-year-old Catholic priest trapped in his home was among those rescued as floods ravaged the north of England.

OTTAWA - Michael Hartney dreamed of being a priest as a young man, but his early sense of vocation was never fulfilled. That changed five decades later as Hartney has been ordained to the priesthood in Ottawa.

NEW ORLEANS - Like many of his brother priests, Fr. Dennis Hayes decided to take his chances and stay put as Katrina teased the Louisiana coast, hoping the storm's Category 5 fury would spare his parish of St. Louise de Marillac in Arabi.

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis is looking for a few good "missionaries of mercy," priests who are known for their preaching and their dedication to hearing confessions and granting absolution.

ROME - The canonization of Blessed Junipero Serra honours a famous missionary who was motivated by love of God, but it also is a call to recognize how the process of evangelization must respect peoples and their cultures, said the head of the Franciscan order.

TORONTO - Fr. Michael Doyle, a Spiritan priest who served around the world but called Toronto home, has died. He was 82.

TORONTO - Msgr. Ken Robitaille had one ambition — to be a parish priest.

It wasn’t to be a mover and shaker behind the scenes setting up the Ontario Conference of Catholic Bishops, or the bishops’ point man negotiating details of full funding for Ontario’s Catholic high schools, or to be rector of one of the busiest cathedrals in North America. He did all those things, and more. His sole ambition was to be a parish priest.

LVIV, Ukraine - Ukrainian Catholic Father Tykhon Kulbaka was headed to the chapel in the room rented by the local Catholic community. En route, he stopped at a grocery store, where four men grabbed him, blindfolded him and made him breathe chloroform.