News from Around the World

Four out of the five Franciscan friars working in the war-torn Syrian city of Aleppo tested positive for COVID-19, with two of them dying from the disease.

El Paso authorities have not released the name of the suspect or other details. But the diocese's Facebook post said the suspect walked into the sanctuary, which is open for prayer, at 10 a.m. Sept. 15 and attacked the statue, which was behind the main altar of the church.

Today Victims of Communism is going great guns, with a small but capable staff and a number of programs and projects designed to make people aware that Marxist communism not only was, but still is, a really nasty piece of work.

A fire on Tuesday morning in downtown Beirut causes incredulity and concern after the tragic blaze in August. It comes as Caritas Internationalis leaders are in the city to bring the Church’s solidarity to the people and to meet and coordinate with religious leaders and aid workers on the ground.

CHINA CATHOLIC CHURCH The Chinese national flag is pictured in a file photo in front of a Catholic church in the village of Huangtugang. (CNS photo/Thomas Peter, Reuters)

Catholic institutions and religious communities requesting visas for their volunteers have been told numerous times that visas could not be issued because of COVID-19, they said. Israel has, however, issued numerous visas to U.S. Evangelicals to help with the grape harvest.

Individual rights and freedom obviously are essential for human flourishing, but human happiness depends a lot on relationships -- kinship and friendship, but also the broader common good.

A Spanish court has convicted a former Salvadoran colonel for the murders of five Jesuit priests in 1989 -- a rare act of justice for an atrocity from El Salvador's brutal civil war.

Bishops told Massgoers to seek refuge in Cuba's patron saint during this turbulent time.

"Thousands of homes, businesses, and churches have been severely damaged or destroyed and the impacts will be long-lasting."

"A confessor's defense of the sacramental seal, if necessary, even to the point of shedding blood," the note said, "is not only an obligatory act of allegiance to the penitent but is much more: it is a necessary witness -- a martyrdom -- to the unique and universal saving power of Christ and his church."

An August report by the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia warned that more than 55% of Lebanon's population is now trapped in poverty and struggling to meet basic needs for bare necessities.

Cardinal Adrianus Simonis of the Netherlands has died. He tried to hold the Church together as liberal and conservative tore the Netherland Church apart. Read his last interview with a young reporter and his legacy.

"As a general concept, economics should become "the expression of a care and concern that does not exclude but seeks to include, that does not demean but seeks to uplift and give life," the pope

Lebanon's population, already exhausted by a collapsing economy that has plunged even the middle class into poverty, has been traumatized by the disaster, blamed on 2,750 metric tons of ammonium nitrate stored for years in a port warehouse. At least 190 people died, more than 6,5000 were injured and more than 300,000 people remain homeless.

"The book tells that the law placed a noose on my neck. The law didn't do it. It was an incident in the village when people were about to kill me without any reason. She (Tollett) blamed the law, but I do not accept anything against the law or my country," Bibi told VOA.