The Catholic Leader Keeping Faith with You

Two young adults are preparing to join the Canossian Sisters in teaching horticultural skills to the East Timorese for the next 12 months. Reporter PETER BUGDEN found out why they decided to embark on the mission :.

ROME (Zenit): Pope John Paul II has condemned the siege of the school in Beslan, southern Russia, which resulted in more than 300 deaths, calling it an attack of "pitiless aggression" against defenceless children and families...

VATICAN CITY (CNS): While the Catholic Church believes assisted suicide is murder, it is even more clearly the case when discussing patients under the age of 12 who, in no way, can be said to make an informed request for help in dying, a Vatican official said...

MOSCOW (CNS): An icon held sacred by Pope John Paul II has been returned to Russia, the country of its origin, as a gesture of good will intended to help bridge the longstanding divide between the Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox Churches...

VATICAN CITY (CNS): Rwanda's Catholic bishops have criticised a government report that lays fresh blame on the Catholic Church for complicity in the nation's 1994 genocide...

TAEJON, South Korea (CNS): A Vatican representative to a meeting of the Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences has urged participants to defend and promote traditional family values...

VATICAN CITY (CNS): The Vatican said it was ready to help mediate a solution to a stand-off between US troops and Shiite militants in the Iraqi holy city of Najaf...

LOURDES, France (CNS): Sharing the physical weakness of thousands of his fellow pilgrims at the Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes, Pope John Paul II prayed for comfort for those who suffer, for the protection of every human life and for peace in the world...

VATICAN CITY (CNS): Pope John Paul II has offered prayers for about 160 ethnic Tutsis massacred in a Burundian refugee camp and asked his ambassador to Burundi to convey his condolences to their families and to the more than 100 people injured...