News/International

DUBLIN - Cardinal Sean Brady said the Catholic Church will cooperate fully with a government-led investigation into institutional abuse being launched in Northern Ireland.

A similar inquiry in Ireland -- the Ryan Commission -- reported in 2009 and found that physical abuse was widespread and sexual abuse was endemic in many institutions for boys run by members of religious congregations.

OXFORD, England - The bishop who administers the Church in Kuwait criticized legislation that would restrict Christian places of worship in the country.

"There'll be problems if the government adopts this proposal; it's out of step with the traditions of Kuwait, which seeks to be an open, tolerant country welcoming other religions besides Islam," said Italian-born Bishop Camillo Ballin, apostolic administrator of Kuwait.

Such proposals come "from ideologies which want to divide the world between Muslims and non-Muslims," he told Catholic News Service March 12.

VATICAN CITY - The number of Catholics in the world and the number of deacons, priests and bishops all increased in 2010, while the number of women in religious orders continued to decline, according to Vatican statistics.

At the end of 2010, the worldwide Catholic population reached 1.196 billion, an increase of 15 million or 1.3 percent, slightly outpacing the global population growth rate, which was estimated at 1.1 percent, said a statement published March 10 by the Vatican press office.

Catholics as a percentage of the global population "remained stable at around 17.5 percent," it said.

VATICAN CITY - The Catholic Church condemns violence and discrimination against homosexual persons, but recognizing same-sex unions as a marriage devalues the unique identity and social contributions of the union of a man and a woman, a Vatican official told the U.N. Human Rights Council.

Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, Vatican observer at U.N. agencies in Geneva, told the council March 9 that the Vatican "condemns discrimination and violence against any human person, including those who are so targeted because of perceived sexual differences."

VATICAN CITY - The U.S. government has put the Vatican on a list of countries that are vulnerable to money launderers, though not as vulnerable as the United States itself.

It was the first time the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs included the Holy See in its annual report.

The Vatican was one of 68 countries listed as "Jurisdictions of Concern," the second classification behind "Jurisdictions of Primary Concern," which the U.S. identifies as major money-laundering countries and includes the United States, Canada, Australia and Mexico.

VATICAN CITY - Permissive attitudes toward sex, cohabitation before marriage and acceptance of same-sex marriage can damage individuals and are harmful for society, Pope Benedict XVI told a group of U.S. bishops at the Vatican.

"It is in fact increasingly evident that a weakened appreciation of the indissolubility of the marriage covenant, and the widespread rejection of a responsible, mature sexual ethic grounded in the practice of chastity, have led to grave societal problems bearing an immense human and economic cost," the Pope said March 9.

JERUSALEM - Christians in Syria live in fear of a repeat of persecution like was seen in Iraq, said officials of the Pontifical Mission for Palestine.

"The same pattern like in Iraq is re-emerging, as Islamic militants are now kidnapping and killing Christians in Syria," said Issam Bishara, vice president of the Pontifical Mission and regional director for Lebanon and Syria. "Christians are concerned about the repercussions of the events taking place in the region. They fear that the experiences of Iraq and Lebanon -- which took place against the backdrop of a civil war -- could play out again in their own lands. These concerns haunt the Syrian Christians."

VATICAN CITY - The International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin will be characterized by humility, moderation and a renewed focus on the Eucharist as the source and nourishment of unity in the church, said the president of the Vatican committee charged with overseeing the gathering.

Archbishop Piero Marini, president of the Pontifical Committee for International Eucharistic Congresses, said the congress June 10-17 will reflect that this year is the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council, but also that Catholics in the host country, Ireland, are still reeling from the clerical sex abuse scandal and are engaged in a process of repentance and reform.

VATICAN CITY - The Vatican's official website suffered an attack by computer hackers March 7, cutting off access by users for several hours.

Italian media outlets reported that the website, vatican.va, became unresponsive around mid-afternoon local time, just as several other websites carried messages taking credit for the disruption in the name of the hacking group Anonymous. Email to and from the vatican.va domain was reportedly also blocked for at least part of the time.

BEIRUT - Church aid workers scrambled to find housing for hundreds of Syrian refugees who have fled to neighboring Lebanon because of ongoing violence between Syrian forces and armed rebels.

About 200 families -- more than 1,000 people overall -- made their way to the border town of Qaa in the Bekaa Valley in northern Lebanon March 5 and were struggling in the region's near-freezing temperatures.

Father Simon Faddoul, president of Caritas Lebanon, told Catholic News Service March 6 that "women and children and the elderly are coming out in the cold, with nothing but the clothes on their backs, to seek safety."