AMMAN, Jordan - Desperate to reunite with family in Europe, a young Syrian refugee recently paid thousands of dollars to a human trafficker to help him and his brother travel abroad. Instead, the pair found themselves tricked, half-way on the opposite side of the world — in China.

OXFORD, England - Catholic Church representatives have welcomed a European Court judgment reaffirming the autonomy of religious communities, but warned that pressure could continue to restrict religious rights.

WASHINGTON - German Cardinal Reinhard Marx called for a "social market economy" in the wake of the fiscal crisis that has gripped much of Europe over the past year.

In a May 30 talk delivered at Georgetown University in Washington, Cardinal Marx, the archbishop of Munich and Freising, said the economy needed to move "beyond capitalism" in order to be more fair.

He added that he was not calling for the abolition of capitalism, saying that capitalism was "an element" in the social market economy he has in mind. But Cardinal Marx suggested that it was the practice of "financial capitalism" in the era since the tearing down of the Iron Curtain that had brought Europe to its crisis point today.

DUBLIN - Europe today is a culture in which God appears to be "silent and unmissed in the lives of many" the Irish bishops warn in a new pastoral letter issued March 29.

The 12-page document, "Repent and Believe the Good News," deals with the importance of repentance for the Irish Catholic Church.

In their discussion of the European context in which the Irish church is forging its path, the bishops said that today there are "many spheres of life in which even believers rarely recognize the relevance of the Gospel."

OXFORD, England - A church-backed report has documented rising anti-Christian prejudice in Europe, despite calls for fairer legislation and measures to curb discrimination.

"Studies suggest 85 percent of hate crimes in Europe are directed against Christians -- it is high time for the public debate to respond to this reality," said Gudrun Kugler, director of the Vienna-based Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians.

MANCHESTER, England - A "deeply intolerant" militant secularism is taking hold of Western societies, said a senior British government minister heading a delegation to the Vatican.

Such secularism "demonstrates psimilar traits to totalitarian regimes -- denying people the right to a religious identity because they were frightened of the concept of multiple identities," said Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, a Muslim. She said Europe must counter the threat by becoming "more confident and more comfortable in its Christianity."