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News/International

African clergy join fight to save elephants and rhinos

African clergy join fight to save elephants and rhinos

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NAIROBI, Kenya - The escalating slaughter of elephants and rhinos is drawing the anger of conservationist clerics, who have begun enlisting church members in the battle to save Africa’s wildlife.

Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst of Limburg, Germany, leaves a meeting of the Synod of Bishops on the new evangelization at the Vatican in this Oct. 19, 2012, file photo. On March 26 Pope Francis accepted the resignation of the German prelate, and th e Vatican said he will be given different duties.

Vatican accepts resignation of Germany's 'Bishop Bling'

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VATICAN CITY - The Vatican has accepted the resignation of a German bishop who was at the center of controversy over expenditures for his residence and a diocesan center.

Samuel Nyariel, a church hygiene-promotion volunteer, gives a hand-washing demonstration in a displacement camp in Ahou, South Sudan. Hygiene is critical to minimizing the spread of disease in the camps. Ugandan Catholic officials helping South Sudanese fleeing to their country have set up camps in church compounds.

Ugandan priest witnesses great suffering among South Sudanese refugees

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ADJUMANI, Uganda, - It has been two months since Father Raphael Ayiga Lebu has had a good night, or a good day, of sleep.

A man passes a mural showing a map of Crimea in the Russian national colors on a street in Moscow March 25. A Ukrainian Catholic priest from Crimea says he fled to Ukraine because Russian authorities are pressuring ethnic Ukrainians.

Priest: Ukrainian Catholics flee Crimea to escape threats of arrest

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OXFORD, England (CNS) -- Members of the Ukrainian Catholic Church are fleeing Crimea to escape threats of arrest and property seizures, a priest told Catholic News Service just four days after Russia finalized the region's annexation.

Leipzig Halle Airport

Cocaine-filled condoms intercepted en route to the Vatican

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VATICAN CITY (RNS) A sting inside Vatican City aimed at nabbing the mystery buyer of more than $55,000 in cocaine that was hidden inside 14 condoms was foiled, leaving law enforcement officials searching for the source of a leak.

Can Pope mend relationship between Obama and U.S. bishops?

Can Pope mend relationship between Obama and U.S. bishops?

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When President Obama and Pope Francis sit down at the Vatican on March 27, the meeting may well offer a vision of what could have been for Democrats and the Catholic Church over the last six years: a leader of the state and a leader of the Church working on the many issues where they agree while working through the issues where they don’t.

Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero is pictured in a 1979 photo in San Salvador. Auxiliary Bishop Rosa Chavez of San Salvador, a contemporary of the archbishop, who was murdered during his country's civil war, said during a visit to Washington Pope Franci s "is accelerating" the late prelate's sainthood cause. Archbishop Romero was shot dead March 24, 1980, as he celebrated Mass.

Salvadoran bishop says he expects Romero beatification in three years

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WASHINGTON - Auxiliary Bishop Gregorio Rosa Chavez of San Salvador said there's strong hope and signals from the Vatican that beatification for Archbishop Oscar Romero, the man many consider a modern-day saint, will come in three years.

Pope Francis and President Barack Obama will meet for the first time March 27 as Obama wraps up a European tour .

When Pope Francis meets Obama, expect collaboration over conflict

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ROME - U.S. President Barack Obama is to meet Pope Francis for the first time March 27 as Obama wraps up a European tour, a high-profile encounter between two major world leaders that appears to carry especially high stakes from the U.S. perspective.

A Syrian girl in Jordan's Zaatari refugee camp girl paints her vision of a perfect place to live. About 2.5 million Syrian refugees are sheltered in neighboring countries like Jordan.

Artists, aid agencies work to help vulnerable Syrian refugee children

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ZAATARI REFUGEE CAMP, Jordan - As Syria's civil war hurtles into its fourth year, hopes of returning home soon seem far off for the 2.5 million refugees sheltering in neighbouring countries, like Jordan. Syrians are soon expected to overtake Afghans as the largest refugee population in the world, according to the United Nations.

Kukama boys watch boats on the Maranon River near the community of Dos de Mayo in Peru's Loreto region. Water, soil and sediments in the Amazon tributary contain heavy metals and other residue from more than four decades of oil production. In all 17 comm unities tested, the rivers, lakes or wells that provide drinking water were deemed unsafe.

For Peru's Kukama people, water is more than a drink, missionary finds

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DOS DE MAYO, Peru - It was a day Father Miguel Angel Cadenas did not expect to see. One after another, government officials stood before several hundred Kukama Indians packed into a sweltering wood-frame room in this tiny riverside village, describing the results of a study of pollution in their communities.

Men carry signs in Kampala, Uganda, Feb. 24, as they celebrate a new anti-homosexuality law. Uganda's Catholic bishops reaffirmed their opposition to homosexuality, but reserved judgment on the bill, which imposes harsh punishment for homosexual acts.

No official response from Ugandan bishops to country's anti-gay law

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CAIRO - Weeks after a controversial bill against homosexuality became law in their country, there was still no official word from Uganda's Catholic bishops on how they perceived it, said a senior Catholic spokesman.

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