Nigerians staged ceremonies to remember the 219 schoolgirls abducted by the militant group Boko Haram in Chibok on April 14 one year ago.

VATICAN CITY - The Society of St. Vincent de Paul has been unable to confirm the number of its members abducted in Syria, as well as where they are being held.

ROME - The kidnapping of Jesuit Father Alexis Prem Kumar has made Jesuit Refugee Service reassess the way it operates in many high-risk countries, said an agency official.

NEW DELHI - A Jesuit priest kidnapped in Afghanistan and held for eight months told reporters "God has saved me," but he said he did not want to discuss details of his captivity.

ROME - Captors released a Franciscan priest who was among about 20 Christians kidnapped from a Syrian village near the border with Turkey, said the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land.

JERUSALEM - The chancellor of the Latin Patriarchate asked anyone with information about the kidnapping of three Israeli teens to come forward and help return the youths to their families. At the same time, he called on the Israeli army to keep its reaction and its search methods proportionate.

ROME - Security forces in Afghanistan arrested a man in connection with the kidnapping of a Jesuit priest from India.

VATICAN CITY - The Vatican issued an urgent appeal today for the release of more than 200 Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped by the Islamist militant group Boko Haram.

VATICAN CITY - The kidnapping of 300 teenage schoolgirls by the Islamist group Boko Haram has shamed Nigeria, Cardinal John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan said May 7.

Christians began a three-day prayer and fasting period after Islamist Boko Haram militants kidnapped hundreds of schoolgirls in Nigeria and desperate parents joined the search in a remote forest.

VATICAN CITY - Almost 30 years after the still-unexplained disappearance of a teenage girl who lived with her family at the Vatican, the Holy See continues to be willing to cooperate with efforts to solve the mystery, the Vatican spokesman said.

Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi issued a three-page statement April 14 recalling how often Pope John Paul II appealed for the release of Emanuela Orlandi after her presumed kidnapping in 1983 and how top Vatican officials formally answered investigators' questions then and in subsequent investigations carried out in the late 1980s and mid-1990s.