NAIROBI, Kenya - Respect, unity and service are the foundations of a strong family, a solid democracy and a healthy response to the gift of faith — any faith, Pope Francis told the people of Kenya.

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina - To overcome fear, discrimination and conflict, people must have a deep desire to open themselves up to God and his mercy, and work actively for peace every day, Pope Francis said.

NEW YORK - Catholics and Jews risk losing their hard-won interfaith amity if they take ecumenism for granted and fail to pass it along to a new generation of seminarians and laity, Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York said in an address at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.

TORONTO - The efforts of a few is bringing acknowledgement to all Catholic students as the province prepares to celebrate the first Ontario Catholic Student Youth Day on May 7.

VATICAN CITY - Promoting sustainable development and mitigating climate change will take more than just global policies and agreements, it will also take a strong, unified stance from the world's religions, the secretary-general of the United Nations said at the Vatican.

CHICAGO - Catholicos Dinkha IV, patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East, died March 26 at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. A virus infection and pneumonia were cited as the cause of death. He was 79.

TORONTO - The Toronto Focolare organization and its friends want to confront divisions within politics with ideals of unity and communion.

TORONTO - Catholics around the world are participating in a 40-day Lenten fast to pray for unity in the Catholic Church and among world leaders in addressing climate change.

WARSAW, Poland - Catholic and Orthodox archbishops in Ukraine appealed for national unity against pro-Russia separatists as calls mounted for the United States to help arm Ukrainian forces.

OXFORD, England - Pope Francis plans to visit the Central African Republic late this year in an effort to end two years of intercommunal violence, the vice president of the country's bishops' conference confirmed.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - Arriving in Sri Lanka, a country recovering from two-and-a-half decades of ethnic and religious civil war, Pope Francis said reconciliation would require its people to explore their painful recent history and accept persistent differences within their multicultural society.

Nigerian Roman Catholic Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama says his country needs a similar march to the one held in Paris on Sunday (Jan. 11) to pay tribute to victims of Islamist militant attacks.

SEOUL, South Korea - A South Korean cardinal prayed for reunification with the North so that, "through trust and reconciliation, may we become one big family again."

VATICAN CITY - Christianity has something to say about human dignity, and "it would be a shame" if differing positions on the sanctity of all human life or on marriage were to increase the divisions among Christian churches and communities, Pope Francis said.

TORONTO - Convinced that Church unity can only be the result of devout prayer and serious thinking, Anglicans and Catholics are getting together to do both at St. James Anglican Cathedral in Toronto Nov. 9.