For the first time in its 30-year history, researchers have taken a serious look at who uses Toronto’s volunteer, informal, faithbased system of overnight shelters known as Out of the Cold.

OTTAWA – As waves of asylum seekers continue to cross illegally into Canada from Donald Trump’s America, Catholic dioceses in Quebec and eastern Ontario are mobilizing to provide the border crossers with food, shelter and pastoral support.

Whenever we have been at our best, as Christians, we have opened our churches as sanctuaries to the poor and the endangered.

VATICAN CITY - A homeless woman was offered a place to stay at a Vatican women's shelter after she gave birth to a baby girl near the colonnade surrounding St. Peter's Square, the Vatican spokesman said.

VATICAN CITY - The Vatican opened the “Gift of Mercy,” a shelter for homeless men, just a few hundred metres away from St. Peter’s Square.

BATON ROUGE, La. - Ten years later the memories still linger for Carol Spruell, as if they happened yesterday but perhaps were a lifetime ago.

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis will open a homeless shelter on the edge of Vatican City, the latest move by the pontiff to help poor people in Rome.

The April 25 earthquake that killed more than 8,000 and left close to 15,000 injured was bad, but “it could have been terribly, terribly worse,” said Canadian Jesuit Father Bill Robins.

VATICAN CITY - Santosh Kumar Magar said he was attending the ordination of a new priest in Okhaldhunga, a remote part of eastern Nepal, when the devastating magnitude-7.8 earthquake hit April 25.

VATICAN CITY - Bringing the light of hope to ending human trafficking means confronting the brutal "darkness" of evil that is driving those who exploit others, said a number of women religious helping victims.

VATICAN CITY - In his latest bid to ease the suffering of the poor — and upend the expectations of the papacy — Pope Francis plans to build showers for the homeless under the sweeping white colonnade of St. Peter’s Square.