News/International

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis called again for an end to the fighting in Syria, denouncing the "multiplication of massacres and atrocious acts," including the suspected chemical weapons attack that left hundreds dead.

CAIRO - It was lunchtime at Cairo's Italian Hospital, and some of the nuns who reside there were watching state television's latest announcements on Egypt's "war on terror," the expression used by the country's military and its supporters to describe the nationwide crackdown on Islamists.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - The Malaysian government has won the right to continue its appeal against a court ruling that allowed non-Muslims — including a Malay-language Catholic newspaper — to use the word Allah.

VATICAN CITY - Even before retired Pope Benedict XVI set up a pontifical council for new evangelization and convoked a world Synod of Bishops on the theme, a new group of Benedictine monks was using Latin and liturgy to reach out to those whose faith was weak or non-existent.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. - An unlikely chain of events made him not only a national celebrity but a stand-in for every priest who has ever ministered to the faithful in an emergency.

CAIRO - Churches and other Christian properties around Egypt had already been looted, so when Catholics in Berba were tipped off that their southern village could be next, they acted fast.

VATICAN CITY - Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican and Lutheran leaders in Jerusalem prayed for an end to violence and bloodshed in Egypt and the protection of the values of "democracy, dignity and religious freedom."

VATICAN CITY - Rushed judgments in times of war and conflict, especially by the media, do not always lead to the truth and will not bring peace, said Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican observer at U.N. agencies in Geneva, including the U.N. Human Rights Commission.

VATICAN CITY - The Vatican ambassador to Syria said the international community must help find a political solution to the "serious crisis" continuing in the country.

MANILA, Philippines - Teams of relief workers visited evacuation centers and Catholic parishes-turned-shelters across a wide area of the Philippine capital as they began assessing the needs of thousands of people who fled homes inundated by floodwaters.