With a Mass near the tomb of St. Ignatius Loyola in Rome, 215 Jesuits from around the world gathered on Oct. 2 for a general congregation to elect a new superior general to replace Adolfo Nicolás, S.J., who is retiring. • Brazil’s Indigenous Missionary Council in a new report highlighted

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights released a report on Sept. 7 that calls for reining in religious liberty protections in favor of nondiscrimination statutes aimed at protecting L.G.B.T. Americans. “The phrases ‘religious liberty’ and ‘religious freedom’ will stand fo

“Many people in South Florida have bought this black propaganda that I am giving the country away to the Communists,” President Juan Manuel Santos said. “This is nonsense.”

Honoring Star Trek’s 50th anniversary in September, the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano said the popular series gave the world a model of peace, tolerance and cooperation at a time of global tensions. • After a Polish immigrant was beaten to death by a teenage mob in Harlow,

AsiaNews, the Rome-based missionary news agency, reported on Sept. 8 that Chinese authorities had taken Coadjutor Bishop Peter Shao Zhumin of Wenzhou, China, out of the diocese to northwest China “on a trip.” Local faithful said it was to prevent him from taking possession of the diocese

“We hope to highlight the importance of prayer as a reasonable and efficacious response to the violence that has touched too many communities in our nation.”