The expression “people of God,” then, is a summons to unity, a symbol of the one body of Christ.

Car bombings and sectarian tension generated a sense of renewed crisis in Iraq during February.

The Indonesian government is failing to protect the country’s religious minorities from growing intolerance and violence, Human Rights Watch said in a new report. The report documents government failure to confront militant groups, whose harassment and assaults on houses of worship and me

The Philippine island of Boracay is a tourist paradise; it is also the scene of abuse and violence suffered by its indigenous people, the Ati. The church in the Philippines is by their side to defend their rights and perhaps protect their very existence, said Bishop Sergio Utleg, president of the Ph

Archbishop Philip Tartaglia was named apostolic administrator of the Archdiocese of St. Andrews and Edinburgh on Feb. 28, temporarily replacing Cardinal Keith O’Brien, who resigned on Feb. 18 and then dramatically acknowledged on March 3 that he was guilty of sexual misconduct throughout his c

The United Nations has taken the rare step of invoking its legal immunity to rebuff claims for compensation from victims of the cholera epidemic in Haiti, the worst outbreak of the disease in modern times. Citing a convention laid down in 1946 that offers immunity from such legal claims, U.N. Secret

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor said that the pope’s “own house has to be put in order.”

Watching from so far away, one looks for facts in the daily assertions of news reports and personal opinion. About two quite basic matters, I fear I should have found much less assurance than I have in this space. For one, there is still no date set for the conclave. Perhaps it may not start for some time yet. Can a date be chosen without all the cardinal electors present? There are conflicting reports. Two of the electors expected to attend have not yet arrived. The National Catholic Reporter quoted the Vatican Press Office as saying they are a Polish and a Vietnamese cardinal.

nbsp Ezra Fieser of nbsp Catholic News Service reports on the passing of Hugo Chavez Hugo Chavez a socialist president who transformed Venezuela while acting as chief protagonist in what was one of the worst Catholic Church-government relationships in Latin America died March 5 He was 58 Chavez

What does the future hold for the people of Venezuela following the death of Hugo Chavez As the analysis begins we offer a few pieces from our archives on the challenges facing Venezuela and Latin America in general Here for example is an excerpt from our editorial in 2009 quot The Future with

John W. O'Malley's Trent recounts the church's seminal 16th century council.

The Catholic imagination of the Irish playwright Teresa Deevy

Who goes to the hole, and for how long, is often decided with little or no due process.

Priorities for the next pope

A Listening Church; For God and Country?; Courageous Forgiveness

Remember MaryknollIn “Statements in Stone” (2/18), James T. Keane writes about church-related buildings built pre-1965, and then the less ornate built after the Second Vatican Council. We always thought that one of the outcomes of Vatican II was that the church hierarchy was required to

Let’s pray for a pope who takes God and the church seriously—but not himself.

Conscious of his pastoral responsibility for the whole flock of Christ, Pope John Paul II in his 1995 encyclical letter “Ut Unum Sint” (No. 96) invited leaders and theologians of other churches to suggest ways in which the papal office, without prejudice to its essential features, could

Delighting in the revelations of “Inventing Abstraction,” now at MOMA