Brazil's bishops launched a campaign to aid victims of severe flooding that has left more than 500 people dead.
A wide array of Catholics played a major role in getting the new START agreement with Russia ratified.
The U.N. estimates that 810,000 people are still living in 1,150 camps in Haiti, just over half the peak of 1.5 million in July 2010.
"The truth about violations of international human rights and humanitarian law ... must be publicly acknowledged," the Sri Lankan bishop of Mannar told a special government commission.
A federal court has ruled that a cross on a San Diego hillside conveys a message of government endorsement of religion.
Christians in the Holy Land face "two extremisms," said one observer: "the Muslim one.. and the Israeli right wing."
The bishops plan to focus on "correcting serious moral problems in the current law."