OTTAWA – A ceasefire in war-torn Syria has not eased the humanitarian crisis, according to Catholic aid organizations in the region.

WASHINGTON – In remote northeastern India, where Christianity is largely unknown, members of two Eastern Catholic churches are taking people on a journey of faith simply by living with them.

NEW YORK – Christians in the Middle East face extinction because of genocide, wars and international indifference to their plight, according to panelists at a Dec. 5 interfaith forum in New York.

OTTAWA – The Catholic Near East Welfare Association (CNEWA) Canada has renewed its emergency appeal for funds to help children remain in school in drought-stricken Ethiopia.

Most of the more than 10 million Ethiopians now dependent on direct food handouts will survive the country’s worst drought in 60 years, but how they survive will depend on the generosity of Catholics abroad.

There’s another $7.5 million heading out to help Syrians stuck inside the war ravaged republic or living as refugees in surrounding countries thanks to Catholic donors and Ottawa’s promise to match donations.

Widespread slaughter, expulsion, kidnapping and rape of Christians, Yezidis and other ethnic and religious minorities in territory controlled by the Islamic State may well constitute a genocide, but the Canadian government will not join a growing international movement and formally call it a genocide before there is a proper, third party investigation.

OTTAWA - One year after the Islamic State’s invasion of Iraq forced more than 120,000 Iraqi Christians to flee ancient homelands with little except their clothes, most continue to live in poverty and chaos.

IRBIL, Iraq - The head of the Vatican's Congregation for Eastern Churches visited Iraq to convey Pope Francis' blessing and concern for Church officials and the displaced living and working in difficult circumstances.

OTTAWA - As Catholic Near East Welfare Association (CNEWA) Canada marks its 10th anniversary this year, it is making an urgent appeal for continued help for imperilled families under Islamic State siege in Iraq and Syria.

Four years into Syria’s civil war, Canada’s Catholic development agency is petitioning Ottawa for more aid, Canadian diplomatic contributions to a peace plan and stronger efforts to choke off the money that keeps both the Assad regime and ISIS fighting.

JERUSALEM - Six months after the end of the most recent war in Gaza, there is still a "grave humanitarian crisis" in the narrow strip wedged between the Egyptian and Israeli borders, where more than 1.8 million Palestinians live closed off to the world because of an international embargo.

BEIRUT - A pontifical aid organization has begun sending aid to families who fled their homes when Islamic State militants raided a cluster of Assyrian Christian villages on the Khabur River in northeast Syria.

BEIRUT - Officials of a pontifical aid agency said they saw much that needed done in Lebanon -- if they could get beyond crisis mode.

Fr. Paul Wattson had one great insight that drove him. That single flash of wisdom resulted in missionary projects, pioneering media work, millions of dollars raised for charity, a new religious order, a breakthrough journey from the Anglican tradition to the Catholic Church and, most famously, the Church Unity Octave which grew gradually into the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.