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IMAGE: CNS photo/Paul Haring By Cindy Wooden NAGASAKI, Japan (CNS) — Saying it is "perverse" to think the threat of nuclear weapons makes the world safer, Pope Francis urged a renewed commitment to disarmament and to the international treaties designed to limit or eliminate nuclear weapons. Pope Francis began his …

IMAGE: CNS photo/Paul Haring By Cindy Wooden TOKYO (CNS) — Describing himself as a "missionary pilgrim," Pope Francis finally fulfilled a more than five-decade-old desire to share the Gospel in Japan. Arriving in Tokyo Nov. 23 after a five-hour flight from Bangkok, the pope met almost immediately with the bishops …

IMAGE: CNS screen grab/Vatican News By Natalie Hoefer INDIANAPOLIS (CNS) — Outside, a cold drizzle dampened Indianapolis Nov. 21. Inside the city’s convention center, however, it seemed as if the pure joy and enthusiasm of 20,000 people — mostly high school youths — would have held off the damp chill …

IMAGE: CNS photo/Oswaldo Rivas, Reuters By David Agren MEXICO CITY (CNS) — Pro-government mobs besieged another Nicaraguan parish, further inflaming tensions between the Catholic Church and President Daniel Ortega, whose Sandinista regime is targeting dissidents and attempting to stamp out dissent. On Nov. 21, Ortega supporters tried to enter St. …

IMAGE: CNS photo/Paul Haring By Cindy Wooden BANGKOK (CNS) — 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 …

IMAGE: CNS photo/Erin Scott, Reuters By Carol Zimmermann WASHINGTON (CNS) — 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. When U.S. Attorney General William …

IMAGE: CNS photo/Marcelo Perez del Carp By Manuel Rueda A church located on the outskirts of Bolivia’s capital city became an improvised morgue Nov. 20, following another deadly day of protests in the South American country. Father Gechi Revelin of St. Francis Parish in El Alto said protesters started to …

IMAGE: CNS photo/Paul Haring By Cindy Wooden BANGKOK (CNS) — 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. Celebrating Mass Nov. 21, the feast …

IMAGE: CNS photo/Paul Haring By Cindy Wooden BANGKOK (CNS) — 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, but he urged greater efforts to protect migrants and poor Thais from …

IMAGE: CNS photo/Michael Hoyt, Catholic Standard By Mark Zimmermann LEONARDTOWN, Md. (CNS) — In the dark of night June 17, 1887, a mob lynched Benjamin Hance, hanging the 22-year-old African American man from the branch of a witch-hazel tree near the road to Newtown Neck in Leonardtown. Hance, a Catholic …