House Speaker Paul Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, became the highest-ranking politician to speak at a pro-life rally when he joined protesters outside the Supreme Court on March 2 as the justices were hearing oral arguments on a Texas law that imposes new restrictions on abortion clinics. • A N

Speaking out against exploitation and unfair wages for workers, Pope Francis told benefactors to forget about donating money to the church if their earnings came from mistreating others. “Please, take your check back and burn it,” he said to applause. “The people of God—that

Cardinal George Pell of Australia promised to work with a group of survivors of sexual abuse to help prevent suicide among victims and support healing and protection programs, even as he faced scalding criticism in Australia after days of giving testimony from Rome to an investigating commission in

Ireland’s 2016 general election has produced a parliament full of feuding factions and no obvious road to a majority government, spurring lawmakers to warn on Sunday that the country could face a protracted political deadlock followed by a second election. For the first time in Irish electoral

Five hundred indigenous middle- and high-school students will arrive in early March at a Catholic-run boarding school in Wachapea, an Awajun village in Peru, but the sisters and staff do not know where they will take baths. The Chiriaco River, where the students usually bathe, play and wash their cl

The Italian Senate passed on Feb. 25 a controversial bill that grants legal recognition to nonmarried heterosexual and homosexual couples, after sponsors removed a clause that would have allowed a nonbiological parent in a homosexual union to adopt the biological children of his or her partner. &bul