The Catholic Leader Keeping Faith with You

AFTER weeks with no word from Jesuit Father Paolo Dall'Oglio, an Italian priest who worked for decades in Syria, Italian Foreign Minister Emma Bonino said, "it seems he has been kidnapped by an Islamist group" that is a "local version of al-Qaida," the terrorist group.

At a weekly public audience earlier this year, the pope underscored one of his characteristic themes - the counter-cultural implications of membership in the Church.

LIFE has thrown plenty at Shane and Jean Davis in recent years.

ARCHBISHOP Mark Coleridge of Brisbane will visit seven different regions across the archdiocese throughout spring explaining his understanding of the term "new evangelisation".

THE St Vincent de Paul Society National Council has marked Homeless Persons' Week by calling on both sides of politics to unite to halve all homelessness by 2020.

Celebrating the feast of St Ignatius of Loyola with more than 200 of his Jesuit confreres in Rome, Pope Francis prayed that he and all of them would receive "the grace of shame" for their failures and the humility to recognise that whatever good they accomplish is really done by the Lord.

NIGERIA: Despite the per-manent threat of acts of terrorism by the Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram, the faithful in the northern Nigerian Diocese of Maidu-guri "are very brave and have no fear", Bishop Oliver Dashe Doeme said.

RIO DE JANEIRO: Visiting one of the city's notorious "favelas", or slums, Pope Francis denounced corruption and a "culture of selfish-ness and individualism", and called for a "culture of solidarity" in pursuit of social justice.

VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis sent condolences to the Archbishop of Santiago de Compostela, Spain, after a train crash left at least 80 dead and more than 100 injured.