VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis' decree to beatify two Colombian martyrs from two troubled eras in the South American country's history underscores his call for courageous witness amid violence and persecution.

TORONTO – Patricia Rehak still remembers feeling overwhelmed when she first travelled to Guatemala in 2004. A project manager, she and her husband Daniel, a professional engineer, had volunteered with the Canadian Executive Service Organization.

BARQUISIMETO, Venezuela – Under other circumstances, Jonny Lopez might have been happy that he was losing weight.

QUITO, Ecuador – Catholic agencies are beginning to build temporary shelters for thousands of families in Ecuador made homeless by the South American country's worst natural disaster in nearly seven decades.

WASHINGTON – Six members of the Servant Sisters of the Home of the Mother, including a young nun from Northern Ireland, are among the dead in the strongest earthquake to strike Ecuador since 1979.

VATICAN CITY - Returning to the Vatican in the midst of a heat wave after an eight-day, three-country trip to South America, Pope Francis took the kind of vacation he said he prefers: what has become known as a "staycation."