News/International

MEXICO CITY - Fr. Andres Larios once supported the highly effective self-defense groups, which formed to fight off drug cartels carrying out various crimes in Mexico's western state of Michoacan. He lent them spiritual support, endorsed their activities and let them ring the church bells to call the community to meetings or warn of pending dangers.

Sudanese Christians have condemned the sentencing of a Christian woman to death by hanging after she married a Christian man.

DUBLIN - Newly released letters between former U.S. first lady Jacqueline Kennedy and a Dublin-based priest reveal Kennedy's struggles to keep her faith after her husband's assassination.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark.- Arkansas became the first Southern state to issue marriage licences to gay couples May 9 when a state judge overturned a 10-year constitutional amendment that banned same-sex unions in the state.

BETHLEHEM, West Bank - With the last round of peace talks between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority stalled if not moribund, some are hoping that a scheduled visit by Pope Francis to the Holy Land in May will breathe new life into the peace process.

JERUSALEM - The Latin patriarch of Jerusalem called a continuing wave of vandalism against Christian, Muslim and Druze properties a "blight on Israeli democracy" and urged authorities to step up prosecution against the perpetrators.

The Vatican is investigating a Jesuit theologian from India for allegedly espousing unorthodox beliefs, raising new questions about whether Pope Francis — the first Jesuit pope — is in fact moving the Catholic Church in a new direction.

A Harvard-affiliated student club will host a Satanic “black Mass” May 12 as part of an educational exercise, a stunt that the Archdiocese of Boston says “places participants dangerously close to destructive works of evil.”

The Catholic Church in the United States has taken a lot of heat over its stance against gay rights and for policies that often bar openly gay people from participating in church life.