VANVOUVER - While she was executive director of the pro-life group Vancouver’s Life Community, Annabelle Chong heard many stories from faithful Catholics who had to be cautious what they said in the workplace when hot-button subjects like abortion, same-sex marriage and transgender rights came up for discussion.

VATICAN CITY -- The number of Catholics and permanent deacons in the world has shown steady growth, while the number of religious men and women continued to decrease, according to Vatican statistics.

VANCOUVER – Catholic and Protestant scholars at the University of British Columbia are finding ways to actually use the Reformation to bring them closer together.

It sometimes seems that you are playing for the losing team.

BANGKOK – Recent credible sexual abuse allegations in India and East Timor have underscored the fears of many in the church that clerical sex abuse is rife in South, Southeast and North Asia, which have a collective population of at least 120 million Catholics.

PANAMA CITY – Thousands of World Youth Day pilgrims stopped by the Jama Mosque Jan. 24 en route to catch a glimpse of Pope Francis.

ROME – The formal recognition of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine brings "a wind of hope" that new opportunities will be created for dialogue and concrete cooperation in the search for Christian unity, said the head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church.

STRASBOURG, France – At noon Dec. 12, the bells of every Catholic church in Strasbourg rang for 10 minutes to honor the victims of a terror attack at a Christmas market the previous day.

Catholic representatives worked to keep negotiations on track for a comprehensive deal to address global warming as the U.N. climate change conference entered its second and final week in Katowice, Poland.

WASHINGTON – Bishop Oliver D. Doeme of Maiduguri, Nigeria, has seen his share of death, violence and destruction in the past nine years, but he keeps his focus on his firm belief that the local church will be restored.

VATICAN – The 30,000 members of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem fund about 80 percent of the annual budget of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, ensuring that Catholic parishes and seminaries, schools and hospitals in Israel, Palestine and Jordan continue to function, said U.S. Cardinal Edwin F. O'Brien.

An estate gift to your parish or favourite charity can be your way of expressing what was important in your life. What follows are some of the ways people choose to remember charities in their estate plan.

VATICAN – The horror of the ongoing war in Eastern Ukraine is shaping the moral compass of a generation of young Ukrainians and preparing them to be heroic Christian leaders, said the head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church.

OTTAWA – A new survey shows Canada’s high levels of immigration are making the country more religious and heightening the need to respect religion’s place in the public square, says Andrew Bennett, Canada’s former ambassador for religious freedom.

COOKEVILLE, Tenn. – They come from different countries and speak a range of indigenous languages and dialects. They are descendants of native peoples who developed one of the most sophisticated cultures in the Western Hemisphere.