HONG KONG -- The protesters killed in Tiananmen Square in mainland China on June 4, 1989, used to be remembered in Hong Kong with an annual candlelight vigil in the city’s expansive Victoria Park, attended by crowds as big as 130,000, all holding flickering candles.

YANGON, Myanmar -- The United Nations and human right groups have strongly condemned the worsening bloodshed in Myanmar as at least 38 people were killed in the military's crackdown on protesters March 14.

YANGON, Myanmar -- Cardinal Charles Bo of Yangon called for patience and tolerance on a day when at least 18 anti-coup protesters were shot dead by Myanmar security forces. 

CHALATENANGO, El Salvador -- Cardinal Gregorio Rosa Chávez asked the country to pray "for liberation from Satan" Feb. 1 after violence erupted following a political rally late Jan. 31 in the capital, San Salvador.

GUATEMALA CITY -- Guatemala's bishops urged the country's president to veto the budget, but also called for calm as some protesters set the country's Congress on fire.

WARSAW, Poland -- Poland's bishops' conference decried attacks on churches by demonstrators protesting a near-total ban on abortions by the country's Constitutional Court and urged restraint from violence and dialogue.

BOGOTA, Colombia -- Bishops in Colombia prayed for the victims of police violence and urged protesters not to take justice into their own hands, following a chaotic week in which 13 people were killed during protests over law enforcement in the South American country.

It wasn’t so long ago that many of us were using the COVID-19 virus to argue that our world was more interconnected than we care to admit. Divisions are commonplace and people move through their lives erecting barriers between the haves and have-nots, between the East and the West, between the good and the bad.

With so much going on around the world, I am feeling pretty overwhelmed.

Bishops across Canada have condemned racism and encouraged peaceful protest amid the global wave of outrage at the killing of George Floyd while in police custody.

COVID-19 has shut down schools and halted public rallies, but it couldn’t stop young pro-lifers from supporting their cause at the second Toronto March for Life on May 15.

CAIRO -- Amid deadly protests in Iraq, a people's uprising in Lebanon and continued suffering in Syria, Catholic leaders of the Middle East called upon officials of their homelands to "ensure safety, peace and tranquility and stability for their citizens."

VATICAN CITY-- Pope Francis said he was concerned and saddened following two months of protests in Iraq that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of people.

"I pray for the dead and the wounded; I am close to their families and to the entire people of Iraq, calling upon God for peace and harmony," the pope said Dec. 1 after praying the Angelus prayer with pilgrims gathered in St. Peter's Square.

The pope's remarks came nearly four days after Iraqi security forces fired on unarmed protesters, leading to the deaths of 25 people and the wounding of dozens more, according to Amnesty International.

Since the protests began Oct. 1, an estimated 400 demonstrators have been killed. Protesters have expressed anger at government authorities for widespread financial mismanagement, corruption and increasing poverty in the country.

The protests resulted in the resignation of Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi Dec. 1 and for calls by international observers for investigations into the killing of protesters.

Iraqi Cardinal Louis Sako, Chaldean Catholic patriarch, expressed his "solidarity with Iraqi Shias and Sunnis" and his concern for those who died or were wounded in the protests, said a statement on the patriarchate's website. He asked all Catholics to pray for the country at Masses Dec. 1.

Cardinal Sako, in the statement posted Nov. 30, said he hoped that "the blood that has been shed as a price" for a free, dignified and secure life in Iraq, will be the seeds of an effort "to build a homeland of justice and independence, in which no one would be oppressed or treated unfairly."

For nearly 500 years, Bolivia has been a cheap source of natural resources for colonial powers. Every time some mineral is mined to extinction, a new metal is discovered to be extracted at bargain basement prices. During the 16th century, silver was the hot commodity and Potosi was one of the richest cities in the Americas. Today, the Potosi region is the poorest section of the poorest country on the American continent.

MEXICO CITY -- Pro-government mobs besieged another Nicaraguan parish, further inflaming tensions between the Catholic Church and President Daniel Ortega, whose Sandinista regime is targeting dissidents and attempting to stamp out dissent.