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PALMIRA, Colombia (AP) — It’s been three years since Douarleyka Velasquez abandoned her career in human resources. Her new job is not what she had planned for, but still feels rewarding. As a cleaning supervisor at a migrant shelter in Colombia, she gets to comfort Venezuelans who, just like herself, fled their homes hoping for a better life. “I feel that in here I can help my brothers, my countrymen who come and go,” said Velásquez, 47, from Pope Francis Migrant Shelter in Palmira, a city in southwestern Colombia. The U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, estimates that more than 7.7 ...

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THE CONVERSATION — Every November, numerous articles recount the arrival of 17th-century English Pilgrims and Puritans and their quest for religious freedom. Stories are told about the founding of Massachusetts Bay Colony and the celebration of the first Thanksgiving feast. In the popular mind, the two groups are synonymous. In the story of the quintessential American holiday, they have become inseparable protagonists in the story of the origins. But as a scholar of both English and American history, I know there are significant differences between the two groups. Nowhere is this ...

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ISANTI, Minn. (AP) — The young Buddhist lama sat on a throne near an altar decorated with flowers, fruits and golden statues of the Buddha, watching the celebrations of his 18th birthday in silence, with a faint smile. Jalue Dorje knew it would be the last big party before he joins a monastery in the Himalayan foothills — thousands of miles from his home in a Minneapolis suburb, where he grew up like a typical American teen playing football and listening to rap music. But this was not an ordinary coming-of-age celebration. It was an enthronement ceremony for an aspiring spiritual ...

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BALTIMORE (AP) — As U.S. Catholic bishops gathered for their annual fall meeting this week in Baltimore, the specter of President-elect Donald Trump’s resounding victory hung over the proceedings. In a letter read at the opening of their public sessions, the bishops asked Pope Francis to “pray for the people of the United States” during this post-election transition. “We pray that the transfer of power will be peaceful, and that the incoming administration will promote the life and dignity of all people,” it read. The Trump administration offers promise and peril for ...

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Pope Francis’ child protection board called Tuesday for victims of clergy sexual abuse to have greater access to information about their cases and the right to compensation, in the first-ever global assessment of the Catholic Church’s efforts to address the crisis. The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors issued a series of findings and recommendations in its pilot annual report, zeroing in on the church in a dozen countries, two religious orders and two Vatican offices with detailed analysis. In its most critical note, it called for greater transparency from the ...

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(THE CONVERSATION) In 2021, Sister Nathalie Becquart became the first woman to vote at any Vatican meeting when Pope Francis appointed her undersecretary to the synod, a gathering of bishops whose second session opened on Oct. 2, 2024. Becquart is, in the words of Catholic media, “the synod’s face and voice,” even “a synodal icon.” She describes “synodality” as “like having a coffee together” —encouraging many Catholics to hope that their church will reimagine itself in less hierarchical ways. With her appointment, Cardinal Mario Grech, the synod’s ...