In all three countries, Pope Francis pleaded for protection of the environment. Mining by foreign companies to extract precious minerals has been a major problem in Madagascar and Mozambique. In Madagascar, deforestation is especially a threat.
The first of 250,000 folios of letters and photographs preserved at the oratory were published for the first time, under a digitization program co-organized by the National Institute for Newman Studies in Pittsburgh.
Some 40 percent of the U.S. Catholic community has a Hispanic background and that “more than 50 percent of the Catholics in the United States under the age of 18 are Hispanic.”