Catholic News Service

Leaders from the world's 20 largest economies are facing "make-or-break" decisions that can boost health care, reduce poverty and address the impact of climate change in developing nations when they meet in October in Italy, said the executive director of an alliance of faith-based development and debt relief advocacy organizations.

Retired Auxiliary Bishop Guy A. Sansaricq of Brooklyn, who had ministered in the Diocese of Brooklyn since 1971, died at the rectory at St. Gregory the Great Church in the Crown Heights neighborhood Aug. 21. He was 86.

The record number of encounters between Customs and Border Protection agents and people attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border doesn't tell the full story of how some migrants, desperate to enter, are increasingly making multiple attempts. They also don't tell the full story of the added dangers of making the journey in the age of COVID-19.

COVID-19, which slammed Iquitos, Peru, early in the pandemic, supercharged Fr. Raymond Portelli's already jampacked life as a priest, professor and medical doctor.

Pope Francis encouraged new courses of action for parishes to help people understand the importance of Sunday Mass and parish ministries, a top Vatican official wrote in a message.

Pope Francis has appointed Lorenzo Fazzini, an Italian journalist, author and father of four, to be managing director of the Vatican Publishing House.

A retired Polish archbishop has been ordered to lead a life of prayer and penance, which includes a ban on taking part in any public celebrations — both secular and religious, according to Vatican News and international media. 

Cardinal Raymond Burke remained hospitalized for COVID-19 but as of Aug. 21 he was taken off a ventilator that he had been on for some days and taken out of the ICU to be returned to a regular hospital room, according to the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in La Crosse.

Pope Francis accepted the resignation of a Spanish bishop who had made controversial statements in favor of Catalan independence. The Vatican announced the resignation Aug. 23 of Bishop Xavier Novell Gomà of Solsona. 

"One must not pursue God in dreams and in images of grandeur and power, but he must be recognized in the humanity of Jesus and, as a consequence, in that of the brothers and sisters we meet on the path of life."

YouTube's blocking of a theologian's talk on the Christian view of sex as a "content violation" raises serious concerns that "religious speech is being censored online," San Francisco's archbishop and Focus on the Family's president said in a Wall Street Journal op-ed they co-wrote. 

Caritas Pakistan has alerted its diocesan units bordering neighboring Afghanistan to help refugees fleeing the Taliban's takeover of the country, reported ucanews.com. Thousands of Afghans have entered Pakistan via the Chaman border crossing, one of the most active trade and travel routes between the countries, according to media reports. 

Plan suggests steps that Catholics, parishes, schools and other institutions can take and includes small grants for parishes to help offset initial costs.

Saying that a humanitarian crisis is developing in Afghanistan, the chairmen of two U.S. bishops' committees called on the U.S. government to "act with utmost urgency" to resettle thousands of Afghan citizens entering the country under special immigrant visas.

The ongoing "drama" between Chinese Catholics and the nation's communist leaders has three stages, said Chinese Archbishop Savio Hon Tai-Fai, the Vatican's nuncio to Greece.

The purpose of the law in Christian life is not to forcibly subjugate others, but to teach men and women the way to obtain true freedom in Christ, Pope Francis said during his weekly general audience. The "function of the law is certainly positive but limited in time," the pope said Aug. 18 to those gathered in the Paul VI audience hall at the Vatican.

Leny and Tata Talasan prayed every night with their four daughters for a new home in El Salvador City, Philippines. Funded by a $45,000 grant from the Philadelphiab ased Papal Foundation through the Daughters of Jesus congregation, the family was among 30 to build a secure new house. 

Even before news of a devastating Aug. 14 earthquake in Haiti arrived, U.S. churches such as the Cathedral of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus in the Diocese of Knoxville, Tennessee, were already lamenting the lack of visits between their parish communities and the people of Haiti. 

When each individual makes a small act of charity, like getting the COVID-19 vaccine, every gesture added together can transform the world, Pope Francis said in a global ad campaign.

Caritas Italy announced the suspension of charitable activities in Afghanistan in the wake of the Taliban's takeover of the country. The Jesuits have also suspended their mission in Afghanistan "indefinitely."