French Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard, former head of the French bishops’ conference, admitted to abusing a 14-year-old girl 35 years ago

“Even if you leave the ordination question aside for a moment, there is still a great need to explore ways of engaging women in all other levels of the life of the church in significant roles. There is still a lot of work to be done.”

Besides casting votes in the flashier congressional races, Catholic voters will get to speak up on any number of local and regional concerns through local ballot measures.

Ahead of the Nov. 8 midterm elections, Arizona’s Catholic bishops alerted voters to “unapproved political efforts” they said are being carried out by a number of organizations and publications claiming to represent the Catholic Church.

“The quality of homilies is almost unanimously reported as a problem.”

Under the agreement, filed Oct. 25 in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, the diocese is required to implement enhanced child protection measures.