Pope Francis urges Bishops from the border regions of Colombia and Costa Rica, along with the Bishops of Panama, to “eradicate the indifference” toward migrants and refugees passing through the Darien Gap between Panama and Colombia.
The bishops from the three countries have met in Panama for an encounter entitled “Easter with our migrant brothers and sisters,” focusing especially on the Church’s pastoral outreach to the hundreds of thousands of migrants who attempt to cross the treacherous “Darien Gap” that connects Central and South America. In 2023, more than 500,000 migrants are estimated to have crossed the jungle corridor between Colombia and Panama. More are expected to make the dangerous journey in 2024.
In his message to the Bishops, Pope Francis highlighted the efforts of the Church in Latin America and the Caribbean, which he said has always sought to be a Church without borders, “the Mother of all.” “Every refugee and migrant who leaves his or her homeland challenges us as Christians,” the Pope said. He lamented the “indifference that bloodies the Darien,” which exists alongside the “hospitable fraternity” in our cities.
“I encourage you to work tirelessly to eradicate this indifference,” Pope Francis said, “so that when a migrant brother or sister arrives, they will find in the Church a place where they will not feel judged, but welcomed; where hunger and thirst can be quenched, and hope revived.”
Concluding his message, Pope Francis insisted, “We form a Church ready to welcome, protect, promote, and integrate all, without distinction and without leaving anyone out, recognizing the right of each one to offer their contribution, through work and personal commitment, for the good of all and the protection of our common home.”

In a Pastoral Letter, “With Deep Surprise: On the Freedom of Sunday Worship,” the Catholic Bishops of the Episcopal Confe-rence of Angola and Sao Tome (CEAST) condemned the practice of holding political party activi-ties and events on days of worship where the faithful, especially civil servants, were obliged to attend. Many locals attend the party acti-vities out of fear of victimisation or reprisals from authorities and local party functionaries.
Presenting the Pastoral Letter at a press conference, on behalf of CEAST, Archbishop Luzizila Kiala of Malanje Archdiocese reiterated that Sunday is a special day of the week dedicated for worship.
Quoting from the Pastoral Letter, the Archbishop denounced the prohibition of “sacred mini-sters – priests and catechists from carrying out any worship and compulsorily forcing them to take part in party political activities.” This, the Archbishop said, goes against the country’s “constitu-tion, human rights, hurts common sense and is out of date.”

For the first time in Norway’s history, the Norwegian Bible Society has announced the publication of a Catholic edition of the Bible, marking a significant milestone for the country’s Catholic community. Published on 15th March 2024, this edition is distinguished not only by its inclusivity; the project saw linguists and Scripture experts collaborating with poets and other literary authors, including Nobel laureate Jon Fosse.
“The inclusion of the Deuterocanonical books represents a move toward a more inclusive, ecumenical approach to Scripture in Norway:” says the Catholic editor Heidi Haugros Oyma, who was deeply involved in the project.
The new publication corrects a long-standing omission influenced by historical pressures, presenting a genuinely ecumenical Bible that reflects the entire Christian canon. Expressing linguistic inclusivity, ecumenical collaboration, and cultural enrichment, the new Catholic Bible edition promises to be a source of pride and a beacon of unity for Norway’s Christian community.

Vatican Radio–Vatican News now speaks the language of Mo-ngolia. Mongolian joins the 51 languages already present, both written and spoken, thanks to a collaboration with the local Chur-ch. All Sunday Angelus and Wed-nesday catechesis will be translat-ed and published on the Vatican portal’s new dedicated language page.
“We are happy about this new possibility to read the words of the Holy Father in Mongolian,” emphasizes Cardinal Giorgio Marengo, Apostolic Prefect of Ulaanbaatar. “It is one of the fruits of his recent visit to the land of the eternal blue sky, which touched the hearts of Mongolian Catholics, but also of many people of other religious beliefs, positi-vely impressed by the great hu-man and spiritual testimony of Pope Francis.
“His words have stuck with us,” the cardinal reiterated, “ma-ny people have commented, ‘high-lighting the values of our tradi-tion.’ Now the ordinary magi-sterium of the Successor of Peter is available in the Mongolian language. A new tool for evange-lization, which we hope will un-leash its full potential through to-day’s communication channels.”
“It seems like a small thing,” said Paolo Ruffini, Prefect of the Dicastery for Communication, “but to us, it seems and is as great as Mongolia itself. Speaking all languages, as many languages as possible, is our mission, our service. Doing it not alone, but with those living in the territories where our words reach, teaches us the importance of facing challenges together, walking together, doing ‘great things’ in the daily effort of seemingly small things. Step by step.”
“In the Church,” Dr. Ruffini emphasized, “there is no great and no small. Speaking Mongolian will also help the entire Church rediscover the importance of what seems small in the world’s eyes and of planting little seeds. We will receive more than we give. As Pope Francis often repeats, God’s revelation occurs in littleness: ‘The Spirit chooses the small, always; because it ‘cannot enter the big, the proud, the self-sufficient.’”

In a letter dated March 21, Pope Francis addressed a group of migrants gathered in Lajas Blancas, Panama. The Pope spoke of wanting to accompany them personally, and expressed his understanding for their situation.
“I too am a child of migrants,” he said, “who set out in search of a better future.” He thanked the bishops and pastoral workers who take his place in serving them. The Pope said they represent “the face of a mother Church who walks with her sons and daughters, in whom she discovers the face of Christ and, like Veronica, lovingly offers relief and hope on the Way of the Cross of migration.”
The Holy Father added that migrants “represent the suffering body of Christ when they are forced to leave their country, to face the risks and tribulations of a difficult journey, when they find no other way out.”
He appealed to the migrants to never forget their human dignity, and not to “be afraid to look others in the eye,” as they are “not disposable.” He reassured them that they “are also part of the human family and the family of God’s children.”

The three candidates running for president of Mexico met in the country’s capital March 11 to sign the National Commitment to Peace, an initiative proposed by the Catholic Church to address growing violence in the nation.
This initiative is a result of the National Dialogue for Peace, which took place in September 2023, organized by the Mexican Bishops’ Conference, the Society of Jesus, and the Conference of Major Superiors of Religious of Mexico.
Signing the commitment were Jorge Álvarez Máynez of the Citizen Movement party; Xóchitl Gálvez of the opposition National Action Party (PAN) and a candidate of the electoral coalition Broad Front for Mexico; and Claudia Sheinbaum, a member of the ruling Morena party (founded by current president Andrés Manuel López Obrador) who heads the electoral coalition Together We Make History.
The signing took place in the context of the upcoming June 2 elections in which Mexicans will elect the next president and new federal representatives and senators, as well as the governors of nine states, state legislators, and presidents of municipalities.
According to the National Electoral Institute, this election is “the largest that Mexico has ever had.”
The National Commitment to Peace consists of seven key actions aimed at improving security and strengthening the nation: the social fabric, security, justice, prisons, adolescents, governance, and human rights.

A new study claims one-in-three young adults in the United States will never marry. Writing for the Institute for Family Studies (IFS), Lyman Stone says these are close to the lowest levels ever observed for marriage rates.”Many commentators will blame these declines on the increased delay in marriage. While there’s some truth to this, the situation is extreme at higher ages, too,” he writes.
“For instance, only about 60 percent of 35-year-old men are ever-married today, down from 90 percent in 1980. This trend also suggests that a growing share of Americans will not get married before their healthiest years are long past them,” he continues.
Stone is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Family Studies and Chief Information Officer of the population research firm Demographic Intelligence.
He says it is striking that just 20 percent of 25-year-old women and 23 percent of 25-year-old men have ever married today.
“In 1967, about 85 percent of 25-year-old women had ever married, along with 75 percent of 25-year-old men. This was the height of the Baby Boom years,” Stone writes.
However, he points out that these marriages also ended up having the highest divorce rates observed in American history.
Stone also notes those Baby Boomer rates were also unusual: In 1920, he says just 70 percent of 25-year-old women and 50 percent of 25-year-old men had ever been married.
“There’s no reason to suppose young-adult marriage rates ever could have, or even should have, remained at Baby Boom-era levels,” he writes.
He says many commentators will blame the current declines on the increased delay in marriage.
“While there’s some truth to this, the situation is extreme at higher ages, too. As the figure below shows, ever-married shares today are at historic lows for 35-year-old and 45-year-old men and women,” Stone says.

Record numbers of people are expected to become Catholics this Easter in parishes across London and south-east England.
Nearly 850 people are on the cusp of entering the Church, according to new figures from the dioceses of Westminster and Southwark.
More than half live in the Archdiocese of Southwark, which covers parishes in south London and Kent. The 450 adults now completing the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults (RCIA) represent the highest number of new Catholics in the archdiocese since 2015. Some are converting from other faiths or Christian traditions.
Last year 275 people became Catholics in the Archdiocese of Southwark. This year’s figure represents a 164 per cent increase.
Dr Mark Nash, director of Southwark’s Agency for Evangelisation said: “Too often we are pessimistic about the future of the Church, many people say that the Church is dead or dying, but the growing numbers of people seeking to join the Church shows that with commitment, drive and trust in the Holy Spirit, with expectancy and hope, and with collaboration between priests and people, our mission to lead people to the Lord Jesus’s through His Church will be fruitful.”

Three Egyptian Coptic monks have been “brutally killed” inside a monastery in South Africa, the Church has said.
“Three monks were subjected to a criminal assault inside our Coptic monastery,” a spokesman for the Coptic Orthodox Church said in statement posted on Facebook on March 11, without elaborating.
South African police said they were investigating the triple murder. The three were killed at the Sts Mark and Samuel the Confessor monastery located in Cullinan, a town 30 km east of Pretoria the capital of South Africa.
The victims were identified as Fathers Takla Moussa, Minah ava Marcus and Youstos ava Marcus.
An Egyptian member of the Church has been arrested as a possible suspect. The murder has sent shockwaves throughout the Coptic Orthodox community in South Africa and beyond.
All three victims were found with stab wounds while a fourth who survived alleged that he was hit by an iron rod before fleeing and hiding, said police spokesperson Colonel Dimakatso Nevhuhulwi in a statement.
“The motive (for the) murders is unknown at this stage,” he said, adding that the suspects “reportedly left the scene without taking any valuable item(s)”.
South Africa has one of the highest murder rates in the world, and armed robbery is common.

In an interview with EWTN Noticias, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News, Cuban priest Alberto Reyes spoke about his apostolic ministry in Camagüey province, located in the central area of the island, and about how his defense of religious freedom on the island has earned him friends and enemies alike.
Reyes did not hesitate to say that in Cuba “communism will not survive” and “the Church will remain.”
The Cuban priest works in Esmeralda, a small town “that was once flourishing,” according to EWTN Noticias correspondent Rachel Diez. Today, the daily life of the people is the same as that of many others in Cuba, one of “sadness, migration, and deprivation,” he commented.
Since his ordination, Reyes has always been involved with the peripheries of society, in areas that have been very poor, but with a community of faithful always willing to serve just as they are in Esmeralda.
The diocesan priest has been a critical voice against the extreme poverty and the repressive actions of the police state, since he himself has experienced both and has seen them in the lives of fellow Cubans.
Reyes shared that although he grew up in an environment close to the Church, he never thought about consecrating his life to Jesus. “There are people who say that I’m very brave, but that’s not true,” he said.
“I think I’ve learned to flee forward [instead of running away from a problem to face it head on]. I have learned not to be taken captive by fear,” he added, noting that he has seen for himself the extreme poverty that exists in Cuba. “In Maisí [Guantánamo province] I saw children sleeping in cardboard boxes, something I had never seen before.”
The priest explained that he felt the need to let the outside world know about the suffering of the Cuban people in order to contrast that terrible reality with what the state propaganda apparatus presents to the world.
“This is a Cuba that’s going hungry and that’s a reality: People are hungry. That Cuban paradise of television and international propaganda doesn’t exist. What hurts me most about this Cuba is the hopelessness. People feel like they can’t do anything; they’re afraid,” Reyes said.