Ms. Cook said she often witnessed individuals climbing the rickety wooden steps leading up to the memorial. “It was the saddest thing you’ve ever seen. You just wanted to cry,” she said, recalling the mothers, in particular, mourning the loss of their dead sons.

The role was created in 1998 and is charged with helping the U.S. government promote global religious freedom.

Republican proposals “exclude too many people, including immigrants,” Bishop Frank J. Dewane said in a statement.

The sisters say that they are “most troubled by the cuts it would make to Medicaid by ending the Medicaid expansion and instituting a per capita cap [on spending].”

On issues that have become hallmarks of the Francis papacy, notably care of creation and the global refugee crisis, Mrs. Gingrich had difficulty explaining how she might engage the Vatican, given Mr. Trump’s views.

"I think that the terms gay and lesbian, L.G.BT. should be respected.... People should be called the way that they want to be called rather than us coming up with terms that maybe we’re more comfortable with.”

“Our border community knows the reality of a broken immigration system."

The Catholic Health Association, meanwhile, said the revisions to the proposal “reinforces the fact that this bill cannot be fixed.”

Catholic bishops there are grappling with a difficult question: Should those who end their lives with the assistance of medication be given a Catholic funeral?

As technology allows bodies to live longer than ever before, palliative care could playing an increasingly important role in end-of-life decisions.