TARTUS, Syria - Lebanese Cardinal Bechara Rai, visiting Syria, urged Christians to hold onto their faith.

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.

ROME - Some anti-immigrant and conservative leaders in both Europe and the United States say refugees arriving from Syria should be considered potential terrorists, and some suggest that requests for asylum should be vetted on the basis of religion.

TORONTO - Many members of the Assyrian Chaldean Syriac Student Union (ACSSU) have grown up in Canada watching from a distance as civil wars tear apart their homelands and force their relatives and friends to flee. As tensions rise and more people are displaced, ACSSU members believe they can make a difference.

BEIRUT - Syriac Catholic bishops, meeting in Lebanon during their annual Synod, called for a diplomatic solution to achieve peace in Syria and Iraq.

LONDON - A Syrian archbishop warned British politicians of the folly of supporting Islamic militants in the war in his country.

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.

VATICAN CITY - Embracing Pope Francis' request to sponsor a refugee family, the Vatican's St. Anne parish has welcomed a family of four from Damascus, Syria.

Millions of Iraqis and Syrians are facing poverty and even death, neighbouring countries are bearing more than their fair share of the burden of helping refugees, arms dealers are getting richer and the international community seems helpless, Pope Francis said.

Church leaders and organizations are demanding stronger action from the Canadian government in response to the Syrian refugee crisis.

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.

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?

TORONTO - The Catholic Patriarch of Antioch, the most senior Catholic bishop in Syria, says the West must share responsibility for the fate of three-year-old Alan Kurdi, the Syrian toddler pictured drowned on a Turkish beach on newspaper front pages worldwide.

TORONTO - One hundred more families, three-million more dollars and an infinite well of compassion will be the Archdiocese of Toronto’s response to photos of three-year-old Alan Kurdi’s tiny, lifeless body lying on a Turkish beach.