AMMAN, Jordan - With crises in Syria and Iraq deepening, Catholic bishops on a solidarity visit with the "forgotten" Christians of the Middle East are urging stepped-up peace efforts to resolve conflicts tearing apart the troubled region.

During recent travels in Beirut I met Kamal and his family, Syrian-Armenian Christian refugees. They told a harrowing tale.

OTTAWA - Canada’s Catholic bishops and the Canadian Rabbinic Caucus are asking the Canadian government to make it a priority to help persecuted Christians in the Middle East and Africa, whom Pope Francis and Rabbi Jonathan Sacks say face genocide.

BEIRUT - Catholic patriarchs from the Middle East encouraged their trouble people to find inner peace at Christmas and urged the world to remember them.

OTTAWA - Canada’s Catholic bishops and the Canadian Rabbinic Caucus are asking the Canadian government to make helping persecuted Christians in the Middle East and Africa, whom Pope Francis and Rabbi Jonathan Sacks say face genocide, a priority.

THORNHILL, ONT. - Every day Rami Kaai receives at least 50 phone calls from Christian refugees in the Middle East who plead for his help in coming to Canada.

BEIRUT - The head of the Syriac Catholic Church has accused Western governments of betraying Christians in the Middle East and said it was "a big lie" to suggest Islamic State could be defeated with airstrikes.

VATICAN CITY - The persecution and martyrdom of Christians around the world have become "a shared experience" and a common journey that unites all who give witness to Christ, Pope Francis said.

TORONTO - More than 105 refugee families fleeing unrest in the Middle East will be arriving in Canada in the next three to four months through the efforts of Project Hope.

VATICAN CITY - Gathered with a worldwide representation of bishops, including patriarchs and other bishops from the Middle East, Pope Francis dedicated the morning prayer of the Synod of Bishops on the family to pleas for peace in the Middle East.

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.

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?

JERUSALEM - Israel’s 47 Christian schools are entering the second week of an open-ended strike to protest ongoing cuts in government allocations, which they attribute to government discrimination against minority religious groups.

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.

Updated 03/09/15
MARKHAM, ONT. - Christians in the Middle East should not be considered as collateral damage of the wars in Syria and Iraq, says Patriarch Mor Ignatius Aphrem II during his first apostolic visit to Canada.