Nation/World

History was made when close to 400 Franciscan friars — from 25 states as well as Canada, Italy Jamaica, Mexico and the Philippines — gathered in unity and fraternity in Denver for the religious order’s “Chapter of Mats.”

Guatemala grapples with a proposed “safe third country” agreement, which would mean migrants wanting to apply for asylum in the United States, but having first stepped foot in Guatemala, would be returned to the impoverished Central American country to apply for asylum there.

Cardinal Tobin, chairman of the bishops’ Committee on Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations, calls Pope Francis’ Aug. 4 letter to priests around the world “a most welcome gift” in this “particularly difficult time for the church.”

The upcoming Synod of Bishops on the Amazon is an “urgent” gathering, not of scientists and politicians, but for the church whose main focus in discussions will be evangelization.

Catholic Extension will provide immediate aid and also raise money for its “Holy Family Fund,” a program it launched earlier this year to financially help husbands and wives and children left without their main breadwinner because of detention or deportation.

Eighty-five directors of pro-life ministry from 63 dioceses around the country gathered for the Diocesan Pro-Life Leadership Conference, themed “Christ, Our Hope”, sponsored by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The Knights of Columbus are continuing their work of supporting Iraqi parishes that are rebuilding after the persecution the country’s Christians, Supreme Knight Carl Anderson said in his annual report Aug. 6 at the Knights’ 137th Supreme Convention in Minneapolis.

Bishop Jose Trinidad Fernandez has seen up close the downward spiral of his native Venezuela.