NEWS

JOLIETTE, Quebec - St. Charles Borromeo Cathedral was packed as Bishop Gilles Lussier and several priests concelebrated the funeral of Father Raymond Gravel, an outspoken social activist and advocate for Quebec independence.

SEOUL, South Korea - Addressing young people from Korea and other Asian countries on their concerns about the future, Pope Francis said the best hope for reunification of the divided Korean peninsula lay in brotherly love and a spirit of forgiveness.

SEOUL, South Korea - Celebrating Mass before some 50,000 people, Pope Francis prayed that Christian values overcome demoralization in economically successful societies.

AMMAN, Jordan - A senior Catholic aid official said humanitarian agencies are "trying to pick up the pieces" of Gaza's badly destroyed infrastructure, desperately hoping that the declared truce between Israel and the militant Hamas will hold.

WASHINGTON - Western leaders pressed their governments to increase humanitarian efforts on behalf of persecuted Christians and other minorities in northern Iraq.

VATICAN CITY - The one thing Iraqi Church leaders and aid workers, foreign charities and governments cannot do for the displaced and terrorized people of northeastern Iraq is answer their question, "What will become of us?" said Cardinal Fernando Filoni, the Pope's envoy to the region.

SEOUL, South Korea - Families of the victims of the April Sewol ferry accident appealed directly to Pope Francis for justice on the eve of his Aug. 14-18 Korean visit.

A coalition of more than 50 U.S. religious leaders, led by mostly conservative Catholic, evangelical and Jewish activists, is calling on President Barack Obama to sharply escalate military action against Islamic extremists in Iraq. They say “nothing short of the destruction” of the Islamic State can protect Christians and religious minorities now being subjected to “a campaign of genocide.”

FERGUSON, Mo. - Against the backdrop of demonstrations and unrest, some of it violent, that has followed the Aug. 9 killing of an unarmed black teenager by police in Ferguson, members of a local Catholic parish did perhaps the only thing they could — they prayed.

The Redemptorists of Canada have agreed to pay $20 million to settle claims from a sexual-abuse lawsuit filed in Quebec.