News/International

Stock photo of marijuana plants. As a petition in Arizona pushes for a vote on the legalization of recreational pot usage, the state's bishops have spoken out against the movement.

Arizona bishops oppose legal marijuana initiative headed for ballot

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TUCSON, Ariz. – Arizona's Catholic bishops said they oppose an initiative to legalize recreational marijuana use in the state because it is harmful to children and families.

Deacon Phil Stewart looks on as Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda of St. Paul and Minneapolis reads a prayer during a July 8 Mass for peace and justice at the Cathedral of St. Paul. The Mass was offered in response to the July 6 shooting death of St. Paul, Minn., resident Philando Castile by a police officer.

Pray for healing of community divisions, archbishop says in response to police shooting death

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ST. PAUL, Minn. – Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda of St. Paul and Minneapolis focused on the need for unity and healing in the Twin Cities and country during a Mass for peace and justice July 8.

A Dallas police officer is comforted July 7 at Baylor University Hospital's emergency room entrance after a shooting attack. Snipers shot and killed five police officers and wounded seven more at a demonstration in Dallas to protest the police killing of black men in Baton Rouge, La., and a suburb of St. Paul, Minn. Two civilians also were injured in Dallas.

Bishop calls for prayer, peace after Dallas officers slain

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DALLAS – Religious and civic leaders called for peace after the July 7 slayings of five Dallas law enforcement officers when a sniper opened fire in downtown Dallas.

A two-year drought in Ethiopia means tough decisions for families having trouble making ends meet. It often means taking their daughters out of school.

CNEWA food program keeps girls in Ethiopia’s classrooms

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Most of the more than 10 million Ethiopians now dependent on direct food handouts will survive the country’s worst drought in 60 years, but how they survive will depend on the generosity of Catholics abroad.

Answers in Genesis President and Co-Founder Ken Ham speaks during a press conference, ringed by supporters, before a ribbon cutting event at the foot of the full-scale Noah's Ark replica at the Ark Encounter on July 5, 2016, in Williamstown, Ky.

A flood of guests expected as Noah’s Ark theme park opens in Kentucky

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WILLIAMSTOWN, Ky. – Ken Ham sees a parallel between the time of Noah in the biblical book of Genesis and today’s growing secularization of American culture.

A worker from the Piacenti restoration center works on a mosaic in the Church of the Nativity July 5 in Bethlehem, West Bank. Restoration specialists from the center completed their work in June.

Italians finish restoring mosaics in Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity

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BETHLEHEM, West Bank – An Italian team has completed restoration of Crusader-era mosaics in the Church of the Nativity, but the mosaics will only be unveiled publicly after work on lighting, electricity and the fire alarm system is also finished.

A young boy from the Mexican state of Guerrero eats dinner with his family at the Casa del Migrante shelter in Tijuana. The family is part of a growing wave of people from several states in southern Mexico who have fled violence and who hope to seek asylum in the U.S. Since late May, more than a thousand migrants from around the world have have shown up in Tijuana.

Tijuana shelters that house deportees find themselves housing refugees

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TIJUANA, Mexico – The border city of Tijuana is filled with dreams and nightmares, happy endings and tragic beginnings, broken families and shattered promises. Mostly, though, it is filled with waiting. People waiting to leave for the United States, people waiting to return to their families, people waiting for their families to return to them.

Community members attend a July 7 vigil in memory of Alton Sterling, who was shot dead by police outside a market in Baton Rouge, La. Sterling, 37, was killed early July 5 in a shooting that was captured on cellphone video.

Baton Rouge bishop urges community not to give in to anger, fear

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BATON ROUGE, La. – Bishop Robert W. Muench of Baton Rouge is urging the local community to be "ministers of healing to a hurting world" while protests are taking place about the police shooting of a black man outside a convenience store in Baton Rouge July 5.

The lower house of the Irish Parliament, the Dáil Éireann, rejected a legislation that would permit abortion in cases described as "fatal fetal abnormality."

Irish parliament rejects amendment that would have liberalized abortion

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DUBLIN – The Irish parliament has defeated legislation that would have allowed abortion of fetuses diagnosed with life-limiting conditions.

A photo of St. Peter's Basilican in Rome, Italy in 2011. The Venezuelan economic crisis has forced the country's bishops to close the its college for priests in Rome.

Venezuelan College in Rome to close due to country's economic crisis

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ROME – The Venezuelan bishops' conference will close its college for priests in Rome at least for the 2016-2017 academic year because of the economic difficulties facing the country, the seminary rector said.

A relative weeps after seeing the coffin of a victim July 4 who was killed in an attack at a restaurant in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Militants killed at least 21 hostages and two police officers late July 1 and early July 2 before authorities raided the restaurant and ended the standoff.

Bangladesh restaurant shooters prayed, ate and awaited their fate as martyrs

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Before being shot by security forces, the Islamist militants who attacked a café in Dhaka said they would happily become “martyrs” because they had successfully completed their jihadi mission and were bound for heaven, eyewitnesses said.

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