Top reports from America's “Dispatches” department include looks at conflict, migration and geopolitics through a Catholic filter.

Bell ringing has a rich history, integrated into daily and liturgical life year-round, a tradition being rediscovered and appreciated by anthropologists, academics, musicians and an increasing number of ordinary people.

In the small town of Stilfontein, some 90 miles from the city of Johannesburg, South Africa, hundreds, possibly thousands, of illegal miners have been underground in an abandoned mine shaft for more than a month.

Pope Francis has called on all nations to eliminate the death penalty, to divert a fixed percentage of arms spending to a global fund to fight hunger and climate change, and to cancel the international debt of developing nations.

Many Syrians remain apprehensive about how religious minorities, including Christians, will be treated in a new political reality being established by a Sunni militia that is still listed as a terror organization by the U.S. State Department.

When Irish people went to the polls on Nov. 29, there had been concerns that the nation would see a far-right surge in the Dáil, or parliament, in keeping with trends within the rest of Europe. But Ireland continues to be an outlier.