Nation/World

Unusually warm water in the Pacific Ocean off Peru is causing heavy rains on the usually arid coast, swamping cities that have poor drainage and destroying wood or mud-brick houses not built to withstand a downpour.

Pope Francis has approved the recognition of a miracle attributed to the intercession of two of the shepherd children who saw Our Lady of Fatima in 1917, thus paving the way for their canonization.

An “invisible” Catholic organization celebrated 90 years of quiet service to the poor in the Middle East, northeast Africa, India and Eastern Europe.

British media reports, a “lone wolf” assailant sped his car over Westminster Bridge toward the British Parliament killing 5 and injuring 40 people in the terrorist attack.

Pope Francis has chosen several verses that reflect on Mary’s faith from the first chapter of the Gospel of St. Luke as the themes for World Youth Day 2017-2019. This year and next, World Youth Day will be celebrated on a local level — on Palm Sunday at the Vatican — and in 2019 it will be an international gathering in Panama.

Archbishop Bernardito Auza, the Vatican’s permanent observer to the United Nations, called on all nations to recognize the responsibility to care for and share water because it is a life-sustaining resource.

The U.S. bishops released a pastoral reflection titled “Living as a People of God in Unsettled Times,” to call all Catholics to do what they can “to accompany migrants and refugees who seek a better life in the United States.”

Some 5 million people in South Sudan — half of its total population — are on the brink of starvation and a quarter of a million children are already severely malnourished, a representative from the U.S. bishops’ Catholic Relief Services said.