Catholics turned out in large numbers to celebrate Holy Week in Nicaragua. But the ruling Sandinista regime prohibited public exhibitions of faith -- such as processions and reenactments of the passion of Christ -- as it continued exercising control over religious activities in what’s becoming an increasingly totalitarian country.

As the wave of violence torments gang-decimated Haiti, six male religious, a lay teacher and a priest were kidnapped in two separate incidents Feb. 23 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital.

At least 15 people were killed in an attack by gunmen on Catholics gathered for Sunday Mass in a Burkina Faso village Feb. 25, according to multiple news reports.

Cardinal Christoph Schönborn of Vienna warned of schism as German bishops want to keep to their reform course despite the latest letter from Rome, which halted the vote on the statutes of a Synodal Committee.

The six nuns kidnapped in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Jan. 19 have been freed, and the archbishop of the capital was overjoyed and thankful at the news.

After authorizing blessings for homosexual couples, the head of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, is facing backlash from multiple national churches and certain clerics across the globe.

Bishop Rolando Álvarez of Matagalpa has been released from prison and sent into exile along with 18 imprisoned churchmen as the Nicaraguan government expelled its most prominent critic, whose presence behind bars bore witness to the Sandinista regime descent into totalitarianism, along with its unrelenting persecution of the Catholic Church.