While the new protocols are designed to include laypeople at every stage of an investigation, lay reform groups and victim advocates say they are unsatisfied, as the new rules stop just short of requiring such involvement.

This week’s social media engagement was an experiment, but Connie Poulos said she feels like it has been a success.

The possibility that bishops would have the option of handling claims of misconduct or mismanagement without the involvement of laypeople troubled the head of the church’s highest sexual abuse commission.

A poll released Tuesday found that 69 percent of U.S. Catholics believe the clergy sexual abuse scandal is “an ongoing problem.”

After 14 years at the helm of the Catholic Health Association, Sister Carol Keehan is ready to let others lead—but she still has strong opinions about the importance of Catholic hospitals and the state of U.S. health care.

Many stories of ordinary people responding to suffering in extraordinary fashion have not yet been captured in forms that will last.

A new memoir by Elaine Pagels plumbs some of the deepest questions about what it means to be human and how ritual and faith can help make sense of the unfathomable.

In the survey conducted online in early May and just published by the British Columbia-based Angus Reid Institute, 78 percent of all Canadians (including non-Catholics) gave the church a poor grade.

While Mr. Tennes’s attorneys argued that their client was being targeted because of his religious beliefs, Mr. Bogren said that discrimination against same-sex couples is not protected by religious liberty statutes. He compared discrimination against gay people to prejudice against racial minorities.

With the House of Representatives expected to vote this week on a bill that would add sexual orientation and gender identity to existing federal nondiscrimination laws, Catholic leaders find themselves on both sides of the debate.