Two Catholic Relief Services staff members were shot and killed Easter Sunday in Ethiopia’s Amhara region, according to the U.S. Catholic Church’s international aid agency.

The women disciples, who were the first to meet the risen Jesus, offer a lesson to all Christians: “We encounter Jesus by giving witness to him,” Pope Francis said.

As the nation marked the 58th anniversary of a key civil rights demonstration, members of an Illinois parish traveled to two Alabama cities to honor that history, and to reinvigorate their own work for justice in society faithful to the Gospel.

At a typical speed dating event, participants chat with each attendee of the opposite sex for a set length of time, then privately select which participants they are interested in seeing again.

On a bright spring morning, Pope Francis prayed that Christians would experience the joy of Easter and allow Christ’s resurrection to be “the light that illumines the darkness and the gloom in which, all too often, our world finds itself enveloped.”

Prison minsters are giving back hope and faith to those men and women convicted of heinous crimes, who too often, are stigmatized and forgotten by society in general and even their own families.

A federal judge in Texas ruled April 7 to suspend the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval of a medication abortion pill, additionally granting a seven-day pause for his ruling before it would go into effect to allow the federal government to appeal and seek emergency relief.

Easter is the time “to roll away the stone of the tombs in which we often imprison our hope and to look with confidence to the future, for Christ is risen and has changed the direction of history,” Pope Francis said as he celebrated the Easter Vigil Mass.

The annual SEEK conferences hosted by FOCUS are for anyone interested in deepening their faith and spreading the Gospel.

The “Elect” are the catechumens, who will be baptized, confirmed and receive the first Eucharist at Easter Vigil, April 8.