"This is a step in the right direction," said Father Jose Espino, a priest of the Miami Archdiocese and a Cuban native.

Tom McCluskey, vice president of FRC Action, the legislative arm of the Washington-based Family Research Council, said the effort to ratify amendments to the U.S. Constitution may provide a better analogy for state-by-state campaigns to restrict abortion than efforts to abolish the death penalty. Bu

A new report says that after growing rapidly between 1990 and 2006, the population of undocumented immigrants has stabilized.

The arrest of a Chinese 74-year-old bishop was "unfortunately not an isolated case," the Vatican said.

The Catholic conference said the proposal unfairly targets the church and other private institutions.

"The budget choices of Congress have clear moral and human dimensions," the bishops said.