Catholic News Service

Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, a longtime Vatican official and papal envoy who was sent to some of the world's most wounded and challenging places, died in France Sept. 4. He was 96.

The Field Hospital: Sometimes, a place of faith, support and sharing is not a parish at all but one within an airport.

Bishop Richard Malone of Buffalo said the majority of priests and parishioners in the diocese supported him and he would not resign over his handling of a situation involving two priests' relationship with a seminarian.

"You have to have faith; it's a miracle our home is still even standing," a Bahamian resident said. 

Theodore McCarrick, a former cardinal and archbishop of Washington who was laicized last February following a Vatican trial on sexual abuse charges leveled against him, continued to deny he had abused anyone in an August interview with the online journal Slate.

Colombian Cardinal Jose de Jesus Pimiento Rodriguez, who participated in the Second Vatican Council, died at the age of 100.

After denouncing the record number of wildfires in the Amazon in August and the growing deforestation of the region, the Brazilian Catholic Church is pressuring the government to guarantee the safety of several Amazonian indigenous people.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed legislation that requires public schools to teach classes about child sexual abuse prevention to students in kindergarten through eighth grade.

Catholic leaders across the United States reacted with sorrow and "heavy hearts" to a mass shooting in west Texas Aug. 31 that authorities said claimed seven lives and wounded 25 others.

People who race to get top positions often feel superior to others, an attitude that destroys the possibility for fellowship and communion, Pope Francis said.

Pope Francis appointed an aide who served as his English interpreter and the former prefect of the Vatican Dicastery for Communication to new posts.

"Now is the time to abandon our dependence on fossil fuels and move, quickly and decisively, toward forms of clean energy," Pope Francis said as he marked the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation.

Pope Francis has appointed Seattle Coadjutor Archbishop Paul Etienne as the archbishop of Seattle and accepted the resignation of Seattle Archbishop Peter Sartain.

In a step designed to quell ongoing controversies, the Vatican announced the appointment of a vicar for the head of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, and Pope Francis conferred on him the personal title of archbishop.

Medical advancements do not help if they treat people as objects or when they are applied only to those people who are not considered a burden and "deserve" to be helped, Pope Francis said.

In 1990, Bessy Jovel traveled across three countries, sometimes on foot, sometimes in cargo trucks, sleeping in stuffy warehouses and banana fields, hungry and sweaty, en route to the border with her mother and almost 3-year-old sibling Johnny.

The 1919 "Bishops' Program for Social Reconstruction" was showcased in this year's Labor Day statement to demonstrate how so many of the issues the bishops touched upon a century ago in the wake of World War I's end still resonate in improving the conditions of workers today.

Catholic bishops in South Sudan praised the recent peace agreement for neighboring Sudan, which has experienced political turmoil since April, when the military ousted Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.

The Field Hospital: As the sound of drums, tambourines and Swahili hymns reverberated through St. Andrew's Church, Elizabeth Muturi and fellow parishioners swayed their arms and hips, dancing down the aisle with the Book of Gospels raised behind them.

The Australian government is preparing to introduce the country's first religious freedom laws, but some senior Catholic clerics are concerned they may not go far enough.