News/International

VATICAN CITY – Hundreds of Christian families are returning to Sadad, Syria, more than two years after their city was overrun by terrorists, a local official said.

IRBIL, Iraq – A delegation of U.S. Catholic leaders visiting northern Iraq was challenged to go home and work for peace in the troubled region.

VATICAN CITY – The man who served as executive secretary of a commission Pope Francis established to study Vatican finances said he never gave documents of any kind to Italian journalists and, in fact, met the two reporters only when he and they entered a Vatican courtroom to face charges connected to the leaking of the documents.

VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis' call to action on climate change does not want to ruin any business, provoking job losses, but seeks to point humanity in the right direction in protecting the environment for future generations, a Vatican official said.

WASHINGTON – Madeleine Albright, former U.S. secretary of state, said she grew up in a generation that was taught to "keep God and religion as separate as possible from foreign policy."

VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis appealed for the release of all people being held captive in the world's battle zones, including Salesian Father Thomas Uzhunnalil, who was abducted in Yemen.

VATICAN CITY - Members of the International Catholic-Jewish Liaison Committee said anti-Semitism was still thriving in the world and increasing Christian persecution demanded a stronger outcry.

WASHINGTON – More than 70,000 people attended the NCAA men's basketball championship game at Houston's NRG Stadium April 4, but no one had a seat quite like Augustinian Father Rob Hagan.

VATICAN CITY – A former consultant to a pontifical commission vehemently denied giving private documents regarding the Vatican's financial reform to two journalists. 

VATICAN CITY – The relics of Syrian St. Elian, which originally were thought to have been destroyed by members of the Islamic State militia, have been found amid the rubble of the desecrated Mar Elian Church in Qaryatain, Syria.