The Christian crisis in the Middle East will continue to absorb much of the time and money raised by the Catholic Near East Welfare Association in Canada, CNEWA-Canada executive director Carl Hetu told The Catholic Register.

COX'S BAZAR, Bangladesh – Bangladesh is bracing for a massive humanitarian crisis because of a lack of food, sanitation, medicines and even basic housing following the exodus of as many as 350,000 Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar, fleeing violence in which at least 1,000 were killed in just two weeks.

OXFORD, England – A Catholic aid worker warned of a worsening crisis in the Central African Republic, as church centers are attacked and more armed groups fight over territory and resources.

CARACAS, Venezuela – Venezuela's bishops said the country's government aims to install a "military dictatorship, socialist, Marxist and communist."

VATICAN CITY – Two former Latin American presidents said the world is running out of time to find a solution to the crisis in Venezuela as President Nicolas Maduro aims to consolidate power over the country.

CARACAS, Venezuela – Garbage dumps have become “a regular place for people to eat” in Venezuela, says a local priest lamenting the nation's increasingly dire economic and political crisis.

ROME - Venezuelan Archbishop Baltazar Enrique Porras Cardozo is one of the Pope's picks from the peripheries who will get a red hat this weekend, which the new cardinal-elect says is a sign of the Vatican's concern for the people amid the country’s ongoing crisis.

ZAHLE, Lebanon – On a rainy spring day, the misery of hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees is compounded as they shelter in dilapidated shanties dotting a long muddy swathe of the verdant Bekaa Valley.

VATICAN CITY - A negotiated political resolution is the only answer to the crisis unfolding in Syria, Pope Francis said, urging world leaders to do everything possible to kick-start talks.

AL-KHALDIYA, Jordan - As a donors conference to stem the Syrian refugee crisis opens in London, Syria's neighbors, which have hosted hundreds of thousands of refugees for the past five years, say they cannot continue to bear the brunt of the burden.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Haiti's Catholic bishops urged political leaders to reach a negotiated solution to the country's looming political crisis as President Michel Martelly's term ends Feb. 7 and elections to find a successor have been indefinitely delayed.

Another $100 million in federal government aid to Syrian refugees fleeing their nation’s civil war brings Canada’s spending on the refugee crisis so far to nearly $1 billion. But a dollar-for-dollar matching fund open until Dec. 31 with approved charities is certain to push Canada’s aid to the region well past that mark.

VATICAN CITY - Indifference to the crises and tragedies today's migrants and refugees are facing lead to complicity when people remain silent or refuse to act, Pope Francis said.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has boldly urged the European Union to respond immediately and compassionately to the region’s largest refugee crisis since the Second World War.