Canada’s Jesuits fear the 18-month joint investigation into 52 Development and Peace partners suspected of dissenting from Catholic teaching on abortion, gay rights and gender theory is putting a Jesuit in Honduras, along with his team, in danger.

The Jesuits of North America are calling out the government of Honduras for “the deterioration of the rule of law,” and backing up a condemnation of Honduras’ political class by the country’s conference of Catholic bishops.

More than 7,000 Honduran migrants including children have crossed the Guatemalan and Mexican borders and are marching toward the United States. Some people, including the American president, are describing them as murderers, rapists, “very bad criminals.” Helicopters are hovering over them, while the border patrol and the military have been alerted. There are calls to close the border.

As a caravan of some 7,000 weary migrants trudged across the poorest region of Mexico, heading for the U.S. border, they found sympathy and received donations of food, water and clothing from ordinary Mexicans who themselves had little. 

VATICAN – Countries do not develop by themselves; they are built by migrants, Pope Francis said.

TAPACHULA, Mexico – Bishop Jaime Calderón Calderón of Tapachula, Mexico praised the generosity of lay people and priests aiding migrants in his diocese.

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – The Honduran bishops' conference on Monday denied there exists a homosexual culture at the national seminary, in response to a recent report from the National Catholic Register about Honduran seminarians lamenting that culture.

VATICAN – After an investigation into alleged irregularities in the Archdiocese of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Pope Francis accepted the resignation of 57-year-old Auxiliary Bishop Juan Jose Pineda Fasquelle.

WASHINGTON – A surprising item appears in a proposal requesting donations on behalf of a Jesuit-run radio station in Honduras: bullet-proof glass for the front office.

Early in the morning, Sely Teruel walks along hilly, cloud-covered mountains and dusty slopes to get to her school in Sánta Barbara, Honduras, during the week. She lives in one of the surrounding villages so the trek to and from school is about an hour each way. 

Provincial superiors of the English and French Canadian arms of the Jesuits wrote to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Aug. 11 asking him to put pressure on the government of Honduras to protect the life of Jesuit Fr. Ismael “Melo” Moreno.

Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga of Honduras, a top adviser to Pope Francis, has denounced the idea of “therapeutic abortions” — which are carried out because of fetal abnormalities — as a response to birth defects caused by the mosquito-borne Zika virus that is setting off alarms throughout Latin America.

SAN SALVADOR - The Diocese of Comayagua is working with prison authorities to try to help survivors of one of the world's deadliest prison fires.

Bishop Roberto Camilleri of Comayagua, where more than 350 people died overnight Feb. 14, said he visited with survivors and took them water, "because some small aid has started to come to our diocese."

"I talked with them because our presence is important to give them spiritual support," Bishop Camilleri told Catholic News Service in a telephone interview Feb. 16.

MEXICO CITY - The prison in Comayagua, Honduras -- scene of a fire that killed more than 300 inmates -- was holding more than three times the population it was designed to house, said the prison chaplain, Father Reinaldo Moncada.

Father Moncada told Catholic News Service Feb. 15 that conditions in the prison were "inhumane" but said, unlike some other fires, it was not related to fights between rival criminal gangs inside the prison.

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras - A Honduran priest known for his work on behalf of human rights and the environment said he and two of his brothers were beaten by police as they rested along a roadside on a trip to visit their parents the day after Christmas.

Father Marco Aurelio Lorenzo told reporters of the ordeal in early January after filing a criminal complaint against eight police officers in the prosecutor's office in the northern city of San Pedro Sula, the Latin American Herald Tribune reported Jan. 5.