Religious and civic leaders urged President Obama to include a religious exemption in the planned White House executive order banning federal contractors from discriminating based on sexual orientation and gender identity. In a letter on July 1, the group of 14 faith leaders, including the Rev. Larr

‘Justice has prevailed,” said two U.S. archbishops, commenting on the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the Hobby Lobby case on June 30. The court determined that certain “closely held” private businesses can be exempted from a government requirement to include contraceptives in t

At conference in Mozambique the U.S. took a few tentative steps toward the land mine ban.

On World Refugee Day, June 20, Bishop Eusebio Elizondo of Seattle, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Migration, called on the U.S. government to do more to assist Syrian refugees and to protect the rights of children crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.• Noting

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal on June 16 from Argentina of an order to pay a so-called vulture fund $1 billion. That decision lets two lower federal court rulings stand, and Argentina now must turn over information about its U.S. bank holdings. Eric LeCompte, executive director o

Bishop calls on the U.S. to urge Iraqi political leaders to form an inclusive government.

Advocacy has basic message: Anyone who works full time should not live in poverty.

The world financial system “has been built as a new idolatry,” charged Cardinal Óscar Rodríguez Maradiaga of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, at a forum on June 3 in Washington, sponsored by the Catholic University of America’s Institute for Policy Research & Catholic Studies. During h

As the United Nations reported that 480,000 people have fled after months of fighting in Iraq’s Anbar province, suicide bombings and clashes between security forces and militants killed 36 people on May 30. • Security forces in Afghanistan on June 6 were questioning three Taliban members

Catholic leaders have raised concerns that Latin American migrants are increasingly in danger of human rights violations, particularly the growing number of minors trying to make the trip from Central America to the United States alone. In a statement released on June 4, Bishop Eusebio Elizondo, aux