The dramatic demotion follows a string of Episcopal Church decisions stretching back to 2003, when it elected Gene Robinson, an openly gay man, as a bishop of New Hampshire. That decision led dozens of U.S. churches to break away from the Episcopal Church and declare their allegiance to a series of rival groups, including the Anglican Church in North America.

"Nostra Aetate" uprooted previous church teachings and charted a new course for the relationship between Jews and Catholics in a bold, unequivocal, radical way, Rabbi Daniel F. Polish said.The manner and vigor in which the principles of the Second Vatican Council's declaration on relat

Although President Barack Obama's final State of the Union address on Jan. 12 hit a fair amount of key Catholic issues, it did not go into detail on them. The speech focused more on general themes than specific policies, which was not surprising since this is his last term.He emphasized change a

Iraq is in second place on Open Doors’ 2016 World Watch List, a ranking of the top 50 most dangerous places in the world to be a Christian. It’s the first of 35 countries on the list where Islamic extremism “has risen to a level akin to ethnic cleansing.”

Catholic leaders in Luther’s home country of Germany at first balked at the idea of “celebrating” what Lutherans there had already named the “Reformationsjubiläum” (Reformation Jubilee). But detailed talks between the Lutheran World Federation and the Vatican produced a 93-page report titled “From Conflict to Communion” in 2013 that announced they would mark the anniversary together and presented the Reformation as the start of a shared 500-year journey rather than a single and divisive historical event.

A 2002 law decriminalized euthanasia for terminally ill adults and it has the support of a large majority of public opinion and politicians. But opposition in this historically Catholic country has grown as lawmakers extended the practice to including terminally ill children and people with severe psychological problems.