The controversy surrounding a bishop in a diocese outside of Beijing illustrates the problems facing Chinese Catholic communities.

A spokesman for Cardinal Godfried Danneels said the transcript of a meeting in April with a victim of clerical sexual abuse has been taken out of context.

New York's proposed Islamic center could become a powerful symbol of tolerance or a recruiting tool for Al Qaeda.

The 800-member Catholic community in a village in India is facing a “social boycott” for refusing to follow traditions to appease Hindus gods.

“I am absolutely overwhelmed at the response of people for their church,” Davenport’s Bishop Martin J. Amos said.

“The exclusion of girls...has always weighed heavily and represented a deep inequality within Catholic education,” the official Vatican newspaper said.