America’s Vatican correspondent Gerard O’Connell has some ideas about the reasons behind the controversial, 11th-hour intervention from Rome at the U.S. bishops’ November meeting.

Men and women for others “are persons who cannot conceive of love of God without love of neighbor,” Father Arrupe once said. “Theirs is an efficacious love that has justice as its first requirement.”

At the request of the Vatican, the U.S. bishops postponed a vote on a set of proposals aimed at holding themselves accountable over sexual abuse.

In the backyard of his modest home, the 90-year-old waters and nurtures waist-high plants known as "Job's Tears." He picks the round grains when they ripen in late summer and uses them for rosary beads.

In the life of every long-lived man and woman, the future flows into promise, then fades into peril and panic.

The U.S. Catholic bishops voted to accept the first pastoral letter against racism in almost 40 years.