VATICAN CITY - Paying homage to the suffering and martyrdom of Ukrainian Catholics who refused to give up their fidelity to the pope despite harsh Soviet repression, Pope Francis also paid tribute to the Eastern Catholics' efforts today to alleviate the suffering of those impacted by the war in Eastern Ukraine.

Nobody wants the Pope to meet Moscow’s Orthodox patriarch more than the Ukrainian Catholics, but the Eastern-rite Catholics want to be sure their Church is treated as a full partner in the dialogue between Rome and Moscow.

PARIS - The first major council of the world’s Eastern Orthodox churches in over 1,200 years will take place in Crete after the influential Russian Orthodox Church said political tensions between Moscow and Ankara ruled out holding it in Turkey.

MANCHESTER, England - A Syrian archbishop sees “a source of hope” in Russian airstrikes against rebel groups in their country.

OTTAWA - While the world’s attention is focused on Russia propping up the “atrocious Assad regime” in Syria, President Vladimir Putin continues to foment the crisis in the Ukraine through an exploitation of religious allegiances, said a Canadian historian.

HIROSHIMA, Japan - For a long minute on a sunny morning, silence fell over the memorial park that commemorates the Aug. 6, 1945, atomic bombing of the city.

WARSAW, Poland - The head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church expressed concern that the world's richest countries are failing to honour a 1994 agreement that promised Ukraine security for giving up its Soviet-era nuclear weapons.

VATICAN CITY - Prime Minister Stephen Harper discussed the findings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission when he met with Pope Francis at the Vatican today.

A serious-looking Pope Francis on Wednesday (June 10) spoke with Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, in a meeting focused on conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East that pose complex and contrasting diplomatic challenges for the two leaders.

VATICAN CITY - In the wake of international criticism over Moscow’s role in ongoing violence in Ukraine, the United States has called on Pope Francis to take a stronger stance on the conflict in his meeting with Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, today.

VATICAN CITY - Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet Pope Francis on June 10, with pressure on the pontiff to speak up about the Kremlin’s role in the Ukraine conflict.

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - The Knights of Columbus is providing $400,000 to relief programs sponsored by the Catholic Church in Ukraine.

WARSAW, Poland - Catholic officials in Latvia are trying to stay out of the region's ideological war with neighboUring Russia.

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.

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis urged Ukraine's Catholic bishops to focus on the social and human tragedies unfolding in their country and avoid politicizing their role as Church leaders.