PARIS - The exodus of Christians from the Middle East — due to wars, conflicts, socio-economic crises and persecution — will weaken moderate Islam "which, thanks to the Islamic-Christian conviviality, is so far the vast majority of Muslims in the Middle East," said Lebanese Cardinal Bechara Rai.

TORONTO - Not only is the Islamic State causing catastrophic human tragedy throughout Syria and Iraq, it is engaged in a “cultural genocide” as it destroys anything in its way that is not part of its idea of Islam, said Sascha Priewe.

VATICAN CITY - Educating children is the best way to help displaced Iraqi Christians recover from the traumatic experience of being chased from their homes by Islamic State militants, said Cardinal Vincent Nichols of Westminster, England, after an April 11-12 visit to Irbil.

ZAATARI CAMP, Jordan - Abu Bilal, a slender man in his 40s, is surrounded by cages of bright yellow canaries merrily twittering.

Nobody has shot at Fr. Jesus Alberto Franco since Feb. 13, 2013. But that doesn’t necessarily mean the situation in Colombia is getting better.

LAGOS, Nigeria - A delegation representing Catholic organizations in Nigeria offered words of comfort and pledged help for Nigerian refugees who fled to neighbouring Cameroon because of a violent insurgency.

VATICAN CITY - Without family, a legal identity and adequate education, children uprooted by the ongoing violence in Syria and the Middle East "are at risk of becoming a lost generation," said Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, permanent observer of the Holy See to the United Nations in Geneva.

VATICAN CITY - Iraqi and Syrian refugees who have fled persecution in their homelands and the Palestinian Christians struggling to survive in the land of Jesus deserve the prayers and material support of Catholics around the globe, a Vatican official said.

BEUERBERG, Germany - Cold winter light is streaming through the ancient windows of Beuerberg Abbey. It plays on the wood of the empty choir stalls, shimmers on the bronze hand bell of the prioress. Everything is quiet and ready for the next prayer.

BANGUI, Central African Republic - An archbishop in Central African Republic compared citizens of his country to the people of Israel wandering in the desert and urged them to use the Pope's planned autumn visit to escape from their "prolonged crisis."

SANLIURFA, Turkey - Hassan, a chain-smoking 20-year-old from Syria, sits in a cafe across the border from his homeland, one of thousands who escaped the clutches of the Islamic State group.

BEKAA VALLEY, Lebanon - Many Lebanese have spent as much time as possible indoors this winter, protecting themselves from this year's unusually brutal cold season.

VATICAN CITY - As the Ukrainian Catholic bishops met in a private audience with Pope Francis Feb. 20, Ukraine was marking its first Day of the Heavenly Hundred Heroes, commemorating those who died in the Euromaidan movement one year earlier.

BEIRUT - Officials of a pontifical aid agency said they saw much that needed done in Lebanon -- if they could get beyond crisis mode.

TORONTO - Pope Francis called for “the globalization of charity and co-operation” on the 101st World Day of Migrants and Refugees, but the Sisters of St. Joseph may have beaten the Pope to it with their submission to a United Nations commission in early January.