The case came as an unhappy shock to Catholics all over the United States who might have hoped that years of procedural changes would have put an end to the ordination of priests like the Rev. Robert McWilliams.

“Every Cuban should be able to freely and respectfully express and share his personal opinions, his thoughts or his convictions, even when he disagrees with the majority,” the bishops said.

C.R.S. is beginning an emergency campaign to get food on tables and crops in the field as a hunger catastrophe looms in Afghanistan.

“Having the most powerful political leader in the world and the greatest moral voice of our time talking together about climate change is extremely powerful.”

The pope calls his three T’s—“Tierra, techo, trabajo”—sacred rights.

Dialogue is always preferable to confrontation, Cardinal Dolan said. ”[But] my gut also tells me that you can’t negotiate with these people. It could be extraordinarily counterproductive.”

El Salvador’s contemporary death squads do not engage in political liquidation. Their targets have largely been criminal suspects or innocent bystanders caught up in the violence.

With the likelihood that migration to the U.S. border will only increase in the near term, U.S. officials need to shore up existing structures and create new ones.

Increasing the visibility of women and tapping the wisdom they offer will surely encourage laypeople around the world. Religious sisters and nuns were ranked more trustworthy than bishops, priests and the Vatican in a recent survey of U.S. Catholics sponsored by America.

America’s top military chief was scorched by right-wing media outlets after book excerpts depicted a series of pre-emptive moves, not to protect the nation from a new terrorist threat but to save it from its outgoing president.