“No more war, war destroys everything. Let us not be overcome by evil or allow violence and hatred to prevail over dialogue and reconciliation.” The Pope’s meeting of prayer for peace in the Holy Land was not in vain. “The memory of last June 8th meeting with Patriarch Bartholomew and Presidents Peres and Abbas, is still fresh in my mind. Together we invoked the gift of peace and listened to the call to break the spiral of violence and hatred,” the Pope said. For some, this gathering took place in vain.

The nine cardinals assisting the Pope with the reform of the Roman Curia and the government of the universal Church, the “C9” as it is called, will meet again in September following a four-day meeting, the fifth since the start of the pontificate.

Other meetings will also be held in December and February but it is not certain that the February gathering will give birth to the new apostolic constitution that would replace the “Pastor Bonus”, the blueprint for the Vatican’s various congregations, pontifical councils and offices.

When the Pope visited Bethlehem, in the West Bank, last month, he was less than 100 km (60 miles) away from Gaza. But for the 4,000 Christians in this crowded Palestinian territory along the Mediterranean Sea , he might as well have been on the moon. Like nearly all Gazans, they are barred from leaving the Gaza Strip by Israeli restrictions. An Israeli embargo on supplying many essential goods to them has left the impoverished area unable to repair buildings destroyed or damaged by an Israeli offensive.

“Hasn’t Iraq suffered enough, with all the mass assassinations and people being forced to flee their homes?” The Synod of Chaldean Bishops is appealing to the consciences of Iraq’s various components at this horrific moment the country is going through following yet another mass exodus of Christians from the city of Qaraqosh.

The Pope’s health is under the spotlight on principle. Gone are the days when any ailment suffered by a Pope, even if it was serious, was denied or played down because the Vatican’s white-clad resident closed himself away in his apartments; although today, much of the Pope’s daily life is spent under the spotlight, whenever any meeting or event is cancelled, alarm bells start to ring and rumours of all kinds begin to spread. So how is the Pope?

“Vatican Insider” has interviewed Patriarch Louis Raphaël I Sako, the Chaldean Catholic Patriarch of Babylon and the Head of the Chaldean Catholic Church, on his visit to the villages that have welcomed the displaced people of Mosul and Qarqosh.
“So far there has been no targeted violence against Christians,” he said.

Caritas Internationalis has launched and interventional plan worth $200,000 to stop the spread of the Ebola virus. The epidemic of the hemorrhagic fever, which is often lethal, has already affected 398 people in the Guinean capital Conakry alone, according to data provided by the World Health Organisation (WHO). The virus has claimed 264 victims. As the number of reported cases continues to rise, Caritas in collaboration with UNICEF, has moved to intensify preventative measures.

I’ve been reading the headlines from northern Iraq over the past two weeks with an intensifying sense of dread. It’s a feeling very much like the one I have whenever I read about the disappearance of some huge ice sheet in the Antarctic or the extinction of yet another rare species of animal. It’s the feeling that one more valuable ingredient of life on Earth is about to vanish, in all likelihood, forever.

Desperate to reunite with family in Europe, a young Syrian refugee recently paid thousands of dollars to a human trafficker to help him and his brother travel abroad. Instead, the pair found themselves tricked, half-way on the opposite side of the world -- in China.

Back in Jordan, with their life savings of $34,000 wasted, they almost gave up hope of seeing their mother again and the chance to start a new life.

Never before has a Pope said publicly, without mincing words, that “the mafia is excommunicated”. Pope Francis made the declaration from the pulpit, in the land of the mafia. Following his visit to the frontier of Lampedusa, an island inundated by refugees and immigrants, and the journey amongst the unemployed of Sardinia, Francis’ current visit has taken him to the fringes of the country, in Calabria.