French Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard, former head of the French bishops’ conference, admitted to abusing a 14-year-old girl 35 years ago

“Even if you leave the ordination question aside for a moment, there is still a great need to explore ways of engaging women in all other levels of the life of the church in significant roles. There is still a lot of work to be done.”

"A society that erases women from public life is a society that becomes impoverished," he said.

A Reflection for Monday of the Thirty-second Week in Ordinary Time, by Molly Cahill

A Reflection for Saturday of the Thirty-first Week in Ordinary Time, by Kevin Clarke

Besides casting votes in the flashier congressional races, Catholic voters will get to speak up on any number of local and regional concerns through local ballot measures.

In their first private one-on-one conversation, the president of the Australian Bishops’ Conference, Archbishop Timothy Costelloe, S.D.B., told Pope Francis, “The church in Australia is alive!”

Leaders of the California Catholic Conference warn that passage of Proposition 1 in California would open the door to abortion at a level that far surpasses what was allowed under the Roe v. Wade decision.

With age comes wisdom, and that is certainly true for Taylor, whose latest album, “Midnights,” is almost entirely introspective, even a little retrospective.