Pittsburg bishop calls stay "a welcome but interim step" in pursuit of religious freedom

More than a dozen states, plus the District of Columbia, are considering controversial medically assisted death legislation this year.The laws would allow mentally fit, terminally ill patients age 18 and older, whose doctors say they have six months or less to live, to request lethal drugs.Oregon wa

Their 8-year-old boy killed in the Boston Marathon bombings of April 2013.

Pope Francis has considered the possibility of visiting Cuba in September—before or after his trip to the United States—but discussions with Cuban authorities are so preliminary that the idea cannot be considered more than a hypothesis, the Vatican said."Contacts with the Cuban auth

A northwest side native, he was the sixth Cardinal to lead Chicago's 2.3 million Catholics.

The San Francisco Archdiocese said the full-page advertisement in the San Francisco Chronicle April 16 urging Pope Francis to oust San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone over morality clauses and other policies "is a misrepresentation of Catholic teaching."The ad also is "a