News/International

PARIS, France – Newly-elected President Emmanuel Macron, according to one of his biographers, embodies a new phenomenon in France known as “zombie Catholicism.”

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.

VATICAN CITY – In a video message to the people of Portugal, Pope Francis said he would visit Fatima as a pilgrim of peace and to entrust the world to Mary's immaculate heart.

Catholics in South Korea have high expectations for unity, equality and an end to corruption under the country's newly elected president, Moon Jae-in.

WASHINGTON – Nine Catholic organizations, including five religious orders and an archdiocese in Italy, plan to divest from fossil fuel corporations in an action timed to send a message to the upcoming G7 summit.

LINGAYEN, Philippines – The Catholic bishops of the Philippines have praised a cross-country march showing opposition to the restoration of the death penalty.

MOSUL, Iraq – With the blessing of the cross raised up in the city of Bakhdida May 2, the reconstruction of the towns in the Plain of Nineveh in Iraq destroyed by the Islamic State officially began.

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador – Pope Francis warned bishops from across the Western Hemisphere that corruption poses a grave threat to the people of Latin America. He also reiterated calls for the church to work closely with people to renew their hope.

PARIS – The head of the French bishops' conference welcomed the election of President-elect Emmanuel Macron and said he hoped June legislative elections would not place the country "in an ungovernable situation."

VATICAN CITY – Indian Salesian Father Tom Uzhunnalil, who was kidnapped in Yemen more than a year ago, in a video message pleaded for the Indian government and the Catholic Church to do more to secure his release.