The chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee for Religious Liberty told a Washington audience Sept. 12 he is concerned about a "steady movement" in the U.S. away from religious institutions and an erosion in the view that religious liberty must be valued.

Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C., has done the right thing.

Since dropping his bombshell letter, the archbishop has gone into hiding, making intermittent statements to those news outlets who share his opposition to Francis.

A Pennsylvania religious congregation planned to petition the U.S. Supreme Court to consider whether their religious freedom rights are being violated by the construction and pending use of a natural gas pipeline on its land.

Sexual and physical abuse by priests and religious and the scandal of its cover-up by church authorities thrive in countries where the Catholic Church is "elitist and clericalist," Pope Francis told Jesuits in Ireland in August.

A Catholic women's leadership organization, the GIVEN Institute, which aims to encourage and train young women in leadership roles in the church and society, officially launched Sept. 12.