"There will be nothing expected of you but your presence and your willingness to pray with me," said Pittsburgh Bishop David A. Zubik.

The diocese recently announced a new initiative to encourage area Catholics to conserve water and energy.

An estimated 150,000 ethnic Tamils are still trapped in a small patch of Tamil-controlled area in the northeast of the island country.

"This is a step in the right direction," said Father Jose Espino, a priest of the Miami Archdiocese and a Cuban native.

Tom McCluskey, vice president of FRC Action, the legislative arm of the Washington-based Family Research Council, said the effort to ratify amendments to the U.S. Constitution may provide a better analogy for state-by-state campaigns to restrict abortion than efforts to abolish the death penalty. Bu

A new report says that after growing rapidly between 1990 and 2006, the population of undocumented immigrants has stabilized.