Shortly after New Year's Day, 32 kidnapped migrants appeared in the border city of Rio Bravo, Mexico, after a media storm over their disappearance -- having been forced off an intercity bus by a drug cartel convoy.
Guatemala's bishops have demanded runoff elections occur as scheduled -- a call coming amid protests over attempts by anti-corruption prosecutors to disqualify a party threatening the country's status quo.
Mexican Catholic leaders marked the first anniversary of the murders of two elderly Jesuits with special Masses celebrated June 18 in memory of Mexico's thousands of missing persons and the families of the many Mexicans murdered over the past two decades.
Revelations of rampant sexual abuse by deceased Jesuit Fr. Alfonso Pedrajas have prompted dozens of people in Bolivia to come forward with similar accusations of atrocities in the South American country, where the Catholic Church confronts a reckoning over the criminal acts of pedophile priests.
A parish priest was shot dead as he drove on a rural Mexican highway May 22, marking yet another attack in what has become the most murderous country for Catholic clergy.
A fire in a Mexican immigration detention center has claimed the lives of at least 38 migrants, who appeared to be abandoned by guards as flames engulfed their locked cells, according to a leaked video from the facility near the U.S. border in Ciudad Juárez.
Nicaragua has released more than 200 political prisoners, including Catholic priests, students, and opponents of the regime, who were taken from detention in deplorable conditions and sent to the United States.