Dispatches

Caritas aid missions are reporting that villages in remote areas of Nepal have been utterly devastated by the earthquake Speaking from Pokhari danda in Gorkha 15 km from the epicentre Stefen Teplan of Caritas Germany said ldquo Sixty percent of the village is destroyed More than food and water

Today we can respond to any email that we’ve been delaying in shame, without apology.

Shortly after midnight Wednesday morning local time the Indonesian government put eight men to death by firing squad It was the first implementation of the death penalty since new President Joko Widodo came to office late last year nbsp Two of the eight were Australian citizens In April of 2005

Another case of possible police brutality has led to civil disorder, this time in Baltimore.

As aftershocks continue to terrify survivors thousands of whom are living in tent cities that have sprung up in open spaces in the Nepal capital of Kathmandu the death toll continues to climb mdash now more than 4 000 are believed to have been killed more than 9 000 have been injured and thousand

I believe pundits who talk about “the Catholic vote” don’t know many Catholics.

The Jesuit Refugee Service expressed disappointment today with the measures announced by the European Union to respond to the accelerating migrant crisis in the Mediterranean describing the outcome after meetings in Brussels as ldquo a lost opportunity rdquo James Stapleton J R S International

While the world rsquo s attention was focused on the outbreak of deadly xenophobic attacks in South Africa another deplorable murder took place Eighty-six-year-old Missionary Sister of the Precious Blood Stefani Tiefenbacher was allegedly gang raped and murdered in her bedroom Police are waiting

A week ago today 100 Catholics in San Francisco placed a full-page advertisement in the San Francisco Chronicle criticizing the leadership of Archbishop Salvatore J Cordileone and asking Pope Francis to remove him as local ordinary nbsp As one might expect reactions to this move have been all ov