The Catholic bishops of South Sudan and Sudan are appealing for their citizens to help foster peace through acts of love, forgiveness and reconciliation.

Police in Ballwin, Missouri are searching for a gunman who sexually assaulted a woman and shot another in the head in a Catholic religious goods store. Archbishop Robert Carlson of St. Louis (which is near Ballwin) asked for prayers for the victims.

“It is my hope that through the publication of this information, we can work to rebuild trust, always with the well-being of victims in mind,” said Father Ronald A. Mercier.

The multi-million-dollar shrine, located at the Catholic Diocese of Orange’s Christ Cathedral in Garden Grove, will offer the 100,000 Vietnamese-American Catholics in the diocese a gathering place and, its builders expect, an international pilgrimage site.

"The tremendous loss from the Camp Fire ravaging parts of the diocese is devastating," said Bishop Jaime Soto of Sacramento.

"We Christians cannot stand with arms folded in indifference" or thrown up in the air in helpless resignation, the pope said in his homily Nov. 18, the World Day of the Poor.