NEW DELHI – Police in India's Kerala state arrested a 48-year-old priest and charged him with rape of a minor after a teen girl in his parish delivered a baby.

Canadian law permits abortion at any time for any reason during a pregnancy. Despite the Supreme Court’s position that Parliament is entitled to legislate some protections for pre-born children, what has developed instead is de facto government endorsement of an absolute right to choose.

OTTAWA - The Criminal Code, the Supreme Court and even the Pope uphold that a parent is entitled within reasonable limits to spank a child. But on the heels of a call by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to prohibit spanking, the Liberal government has promised to amend the Criminal Code to abolish a parent’s right to physically discipline children.

ROME - A Tuscany priest is offering a baby bonus of more than $2,000 to Italian Catholic families who have three or more children. But there are strings attached.

On June 18, Pope Francis released his long-anticipated encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home.

VATICAN CITY - The deep hurts that spouses inflict on each other cause great suffering to their children and, in some cases, lead to a separation that is "morally necessary" to protect spouses and children from more serious forms of violence, Pope Francis said during his general audience in St. Peter's Square June 24.

TORONTO - Former senator Hugh Segal is encouraging faith groups to use their collective voice to help put an end to child poverty in Canada.

VATICAN CITY - More than 55,000 people have signed a petition calling for Cardinal George Pell to return to his native Australia and face a government commission on child sex abuse, after allegations that he tried to bribe the victim of a pedophile priest.

TORONTO - Dynamic Women of Faith and the Archdiocese of Toronto are joining together to initiate fellowship groups for mothers in parishes across the Greater Toronto Area.

WASHINGTON - Arriving in the Philippines from Ireland in 1969 as a young missionary priest, Columban Father Shay Cullen hardly expected he'd end up fighting a burgeoning sex industry.

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Catholic Church spent a total of $150.7 million on child protection efforts and to address allegations of clergy sexual abuse of minors in dioceses and religious orders between July 2013 and June 2014.

DUBLIN - Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin said he would seek assurances from religious congregations operating in his diocese that they are rigidly following child protection guidelines after a fresh round of audits raised serious concerns.

Two months after the OPP seized a computer from St. Patrick’s parish in Caledonia, Ont., looking for child porn, police have returned the computer and closed the investigation — no child porn, just annoying pop-up advertising the computer’s firewalls were not equipped to block.

All too often nations fail to honour headline-grabbing promises trumpeted at the conclusion of international summits. Leaders move on to other issues and other crises and hope no one remembers pledges made in previous years.