Catholic News Service

Meeting Thai religious leaders and then celebrating Mass with Catholic young adults, Pope Francis encouraged them to strengthen a culture that treasures the past, holds fast to faith, is unafraid of differences and always seeks a way to promote dialogue and cooperation.

In a large, predominantly Catholic village outside Bangkok, tens of thousands of people lined the roads and filled the grounds of a church complex to greet Pope Francis.

A federal judge Nov. 20 temporarily blocked the executions of four federal death-row inmates scheduled for December and January, saying the lethal injections they were to receive goes against the Federal Death Penalty Act.

Caritas Internationalis, the Vatican-based confederation of 165 national Catholic charities, has expressed sadness and outrage over incidents of child abuse by a Belgian Salesian priest who had been the national director of Caritas in the Central African Republic

Each year, the students flock to a hotel just outside of Washington. Like migrating birds signaling winter, you can tell the time of year by the arrival of the high schoolers, college students and young alumni from Jesuit universities around the country.

Missionaries are not mercenaries, but beggars who recognize that some brothers and sisters are missing from the community and long to hear the good news of salvation, Pope Francis told the Catholics of Thailand.

Calling migration "one of the principal moral issues" facing humanity today, Pope Francis thanked the government and people of Thailand for the way they've welcomed migrants and refugees.

The Field Hospital: Pastor of two parishes in the Steubenville Diocese, Fr. David Cornett has a gift for languages and the initiative to do what he can to bring the Gospel message to more people, in this case, members of the deaf community.

The Guatemalan bishops' migrant ministry has rejected talk of the U.S. and Guatemalan governments sending asylum-seekers to a remote and rugged jungle region rife with drug cartel activities. The bishops said conditions there are not secure for Guatemalan citizens, much less migrants.

In a message to young Catholics in Vietnam, Pope Francis offered prayers for a group of Vietnamese migrants who died while being smuggled into Great Britain in late October.

Around the world, communities of their Jesuit brothers, but also laity involved in social justice circles and even Pope Francis, made sure their names and what they stood for was not forgotten.

It was the 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time at St. Kateri Tekakwitha Church in Santa Clarita.

A pro-government mob entered the cathedral in Managua, Nicaragua, damaging property, attacking hunger strikers inside the building and jostling a priest and nun.

Pope Francis has appointed Msgr. Francis Malone, a pastor and the chancellor for ecclesial affairs in the Diocese of Little Rock, Arkansas, to be the bishop of Shreveport, Louisiana.

Archbishop Fulton Sheen will be beatified Dec. 21, Bishop Daniel Jenky of Peoria announced late Nov. 18.

During their two-hour group meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican Nov. 15, the Catholics bishops of the New York region experienced a "free and open discussion of many of the challenges and opportunities our church is facing," Buffalo Bishop Richard Malone said Nov. 18.

Bolivian bishops are organizing talks between political factions as protests against the nation's new government become increasingly deadly.

The Vatican's Christmas tree will be adorned with energy-saving lights, the governing office of Vatican City said.

Interreligious dialogue is an important way to counter fundamentalist groups as well as the unjust accusation that religions sow division, Pope Francis said.

Five days before his scheduled execution, death-row inmate Rodney Reed was granted an indefinite stay of his execution.