PARIS – On a sunny spring morning, an 18-year-old college student wrapped a scarf around her head to feel what it would be like to wear a veil.

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.

PARIS - Faith-based groups presented French President Francois Hollande with 1.8 million signatures of people seeking a fair climate change agreement that would stop global warming and protect the poor, reported religious groups in Paris for the U.N. climate change conference.

VATICAN CITY - "This is not human," Pope Francis said after a night of terror in Paris left more than 120 people dead and more than 200 people injured.

KIGALI, Rwanda - A Rwandan government commission has criticized the dismissal of genocide charges against a Catholic priest who fled to France after the 1994 mass killing of the African country's Tutsi inhabitants.

CERGY-PONTOISE, France - When the first wave of Syrians and Iraqis arrived at this northwestern Paris suburb, Nabil Seghari signed up to volunteer with the Catholic charity spearheading the welcome efforts.

PARIS - Catholic churches in France have been placed under police protection and urged to take extra security measures against possible Islamist attacks before the Aug. 15 feast of the Assumption.

PARIS - More than 40,000 French have signed a rousing “Hands off my church” petition in recent days denouncing a Muslim leader’s casual remark that some of France’s many empty or underused churches could be turned into much-needed mosques.

OXFORD, England - French Catholics have urged church support for a campaign to stop Western companies from buying oil from Islamic State, in effect funding the mass killing of Christians.

VATICAN CITY - Despite media reports that Pope Francis refused the candidate France proposed as its next ambassador to the Holy See — speculating that it is due to the fact Laurent Stefanini is homosexual — the French government has yet to receive an official response from the Vatican, said a spokesperson for the French government.

YON, France - Sunlight slants across a classroom at the Catholic University of Lyon, where the Bible dominates an evening lecture.

JERUSALEM - Where is it safe for Jews to live?

More than three million people marched in cities across France on Jan. 11 to decry the deaths of 17 terror victims and to publicly defend liberty and free speech. In their sheer numbers and massive support of fundamental human rights, the French people deserve the world’s praise and support.

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis condemned the killings of at least 12 people at the Paris offices of a satirical weekly newspaper Jan. 7 and denounced all "physical and moral" obstacles to the peaceful co-existence of nations, religions and cultures.

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis will address the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, Nov. 25.