News/International

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – With a growing number of U.S. travelers returning from abroad with the Zika virus and with several cases of Zika-related microcephaly and birth defects reported in the U.S., the disease has inflamed the abortion debate domestically.

VATICAN CITY – Innocent men, women and children are paying the ultimate price in the continuing conflict raging in Syria, especially in Aleppo, where they are caught in the crossfire between rebel and government forces, Pope Francis said.

VATICAN CITY – In a personal message addressed to each of the 10 members of the new Refugee Olympic Team, Pope Francis wished them success in their events and thanked them for the witness they are giving the world.

NEW DELHI – The Catholic Church in Pakistan has condemned a suicide blast at a hospital in Quetta, Pakistan, where at least 70 people – many of them lawyers and journalists – were killed and more than 120 injured.

When Vice President Joe Biden last week tweeted a photo of himself proudly officiating at the same-sex civil wedding of two White House staffers, it quickly became fodder for news stories and commentary both pro and con — the latter by religious conservatives who thought Biden was betraying his Catholic faith and deserved a rebuke.

There is a global refugee crisis, but it’s not in the rich west, the international director of the Jesuit Refugee Service told The Catholic Register in an e-mail.

AINKAWA, Iraq – Abu and Um Sabah had to trade a tent anchored in a soft, grassy patch in a park for a roughly hewn, five-story unfinished cement building as they sat out their forced displacement by Islamic State militants for a second year.

As Armenian Catholics, the Moubayed’s don’t want to disagree with the Pope. But as Syrians who fled their home in Aleppo last year while the bombs came closer and closer, the married couple are not so sure peace is possible.

IRBIL, Iraq – The upcoming military offensive to root out Islamic State militants from Mosul and surrounding villages will be a "huge challenge," the United Nations says, as it expects about 1.5 million people to flee the warfare in a short amount of time.

WASHINGTON – To help before tragedy occurs, a Washington-based priest and psychologist is conducting a free webinar at the end of August to prepare priests, religious and other Church members to deal with the trauma that follows a natural disaster, an act of terrorism or any other large-scale tragedy that they and the communities they serve might face.