The night—at times weighed down by sobering reminders of abuse—was overlaid with levity.

Much like New Orleans’ Ninth Ward after Hurricane Katrina, the low-income neighborhoods east of Panama City, where St. Dominic is located, were especially hard-hit by the storm. Now residents here are desperate for help.

“I believe there are adequate, alternative options for true women’s health care out there, and Planned Parenthood is not needed,” said Alisha Fox, a health and wellness coach at a Catholic fertility center in Chicago.

The U.S. Justice Department has opened an investigation of child sexual abuse inside the Roman Catholic Church in Pennsylvania.

The women seeking justice for vanished loved ones in Veracruz, Mexico, won the Notre Dame award for human rights. University President John I. Jenkins co-celebrated a Mass near the unmarked graves of drug war victims.

Indiana's attorney general Oct. 15 petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to review and reverse a ruling by a lower court declaring unconstitutional an Indiana law that makes it illegal for women in the state to have an abortion solely based on the race, gender or disability of a fetus.