ZAHLE, Lebanon – On a rainy spring day, the misery of hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees is compounded as they shelter in dilapidated shanties dotting a long muddy swathe of the verdant Bekaa Valley.

Toronto – American Jesuit Father Greg Boyle told Ontario educators they must stand with the poor, the vulnerable and anyone who is rejected by society.

With seven million Syrian children forced into poverty, almost three million out of school and two million living in cities under siege, the United Nations children’s agency UNICEF estimates 80 per cent of Syria’s children have suffered harm in the five-year-old war.

The strength of Catholic education is founded on an alliance between families, parishes and schools which work together towards a shared objective. Together they comprise the domestic church.

TORONTO - Syria’s civil war has seen families pulling their children out of school as they escape the growing violence and persecution in the area. Many have not been back to school since the war started in 2012.

VATICAN CITY - The educational alliance among families, schools and states is broken, causing a serious situation that leads to selecting to educate only "supermen" chosen solely based on intelligence or wealth, Pope Francis said.

In the early 1940s, as a barefoot-in-summer lad in Ireland, I had my introduction to the natural environment. My family had a small store and pub on a gravel coast road in The Burren, a barren karst limestone district on Galway Bay.

My father had built a small windmill, using the dynamo from a Ford car, with a wooden wind direction indicator, on an eight-metre pole. The constant winds from the ocean kept three “wet” batteries charged, which provided enough electricity for four light bulbs and a wireless radio. Every night, my father and the neighbours from miles around gathered around the wireless to listen to the news/propaganda from the war fronts.

MANILA, Philippines - The Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines tackled climate change on different fronts and also addressed a host of other issues, from equitable education to sovereign disputes at its biannual plenary session July 6-13.

QUITO, Ecuador - Education is a right and a privilege that should impart not only knowledge and skills, but also a sense of responsibility for others and for the earth, Pope Francis told representatives of Ecuadorean schools and universities.

Throughout my undergraduate experience I was actively involved with many leadership opportunities on campus. In my final year, I was blessed with the opportunity to help shape the future of my alma mater.

Now is the time Catholics need to prepare for a new urgency and a new way of thinking about our tradition and the natural world. We have to claim a new or renewed intimacy with creation.

TORONTO - The voice of parents must be heard, a determined group of parents upset with Ontario’s new sex-ed curriculum has vowed.

They gathered again at Queen’s Park, almost 2,000 of them, on June 7 to denounce Premier Kathleen Wynne’s Liberal government for moving forward with the curriculum.

VATICAN CITY - Promoting dialogue, education and strong families, the Catholic Church in Africa fulfills its mission to proclaim God's love and to work for the common good, Pope Francis said in separate meetings with the bishops of Mozambique and of Togo.

MISSISSAUGA, ONT. - The main shrine of Mississauga’s grand Fo Guang Shan Temple is typically used by Buddhists for weekly services or meditation. On May 2, however, a modest crowd of Catholics, Sikhs, Jews and Muslims joined with the Buddhists to address a situation that  all grapple with — the future.

MILAN - The Holy See's official pavilion at the Milan Expo 2015, the newest edition of the every-five-years world's fair, will be a public space of relaxation and learning.