VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis' decree to beatify two Colombian martyrs from two troubled eras in the South American country's history underscores his call for courageous witness amid violence and persecution.

TORONTO – Patricia Rehak still remembers feeling overwhelmed when she first travelled to Guatemala in 2004. A project manager, she and her husband Daniel, a professional engineer, had volunteered with the Canadian Executive Service Organization.

BARQUISIMETO, Venezuela – Under other circumstances, Jonny Lopez might have been happy that he was losing weight.

QUITO, Ecuador – Catholic agencies are beginning to build temporary shelters for thousands of families in Ecuador made homeless by the South American country's worst natural disaster in nearly seven decades.

WASHINGTON – Six members of the Servant Sisters of the Home of the Mother, including a young nun from Northern Ireland, are among the dead in the strongest earthquake to strike Ecuador since 1979.

VATICAN CITY - Returning to the Vatican in the midst of a heat wave after an eight-day, three-country trip to South America, Pope Francis took the kind of vacation he said he prefers: what has become known as a "staycation."

VATICAN CITY - Preceded by a procession of flags from the nations of the Americas and the recitation of the rosary in Spanish, Pope Francis and thousands of Catholics from across the Atlantic celebrated the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe in the Vatican.