Signs Of the Times

Hunger, not religion, is the root cause of conflict in sub-Saharan Africa, said Charles Steinmetz of Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. “A hungry man is an angry man. If there is no job and you cannot feed your family or kids, it leads to extremism,” said Steinmetz, a visiting assistant

Pope Francis has done it again, generating a global media frenzy with just a few words that referred to the church and its relationship with gay and lesbian people. In a recorded interview with Italian media published on March 5, Pope Francis said that while the church believes “matrimony is b

In a speech to the Congregation for Bishops, Pope Francis said bishops should act not like ambitious corporate executives but as humble evangelists and men of prayer, willing to sacrifice everything for their flocks. “We don’t need a manager, the C.E.O. of a business, nor someone who sha

Father Wissam Akiki became the first married man to be ordained a priest for the U.S. Maronite Catholic Church on Feb. 27 at St. Raymond’s Maronite Cathedral in St. Louis, Mo. • Thousands lined up at the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp near Damascus on Feb. 24 in hope of receiving one of

“The church in the United States has a moral and ethical imperative to protect human dignity and must address the problem of mass incarceration in our nation,” the leaders of Christian Churches Together in the U.S.A. said in a statement issued on Feb. 7 in Newark, N.J. The coalition incl

Nigeria is in a state of shock after the killing of 59 students at a government-run college by Boko Haram Islamic militants in the northeastern state of Yobe during the night of Feb. 25. Two days later another attack on a village claimed 12 more lives. During the school attack, the militants spared

A cease-fire that seemed to offer a chance for a peaceful resolution to months-long conflict in the world’s newest nation, South Sudan, has unraveled. Intermittent fighting has continued since the cease-fire agreement was signed on Jan. 23. But now in Malakal, a key city in an oil-producing re

Cardinal Kasper says church could in very specific cases tolerate a second union.

Security and police forces seemed to melt away from the embattled Independence Square in Kiev and throughout the city, as it awoke on Feb. 21, the day after opposition and government forces signed an agreement that effectively ended turmoil in Kiev’s streets. In a rapid and remarkable series o

In New York City’s African-American community, more pregnancies ended in abortion than live births in 2012, and its 31,328 abortions—6,570 more than the 24,758 live births—represented a shocking 42.4 percent of all abortions, according to a report released on Feb. 21 by the New Yor