“Women are knocking on the door of the church…. But I fear a generation will come that will stop knocking,” Dr. Carolyn Woo, president and C.E.O. of Catholic Relief Services, said at the Vatican on March 8 during a panel discussion organized by Voices of Faith, a Catholic women&rs

Essays in L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, urged the Catholic Church to allow women to preach from the pulpit at Mass, a role that has been reserved almost exclusively to the all-male clergy for centuries. Enzo Bianchi, leader of an ecumenical religious community in northern Italy,

Speaking out against exploitation and unfair wages for workers, Pope Francis told benefactors to forget about donating money to the church if their earnings came from mistreating others. “Please, take your check back and burn it,” he said to applause. “The people of God—that

House Speaker Paul Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, became the highest-ranking politician to speak at a pro-life rally when he joined protesters outside the Supreme Court on March 2 as the justices were hearing oral arguments on a Texas law that imposes new restrictions on abortion clinics. • A N

Hundreds of children were sexually abused over at least 40 years by priests and other religious leaders in the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, a statewide grand jury found. At least 50 priests or religious leaders were involved in the abuse, and diocesan leaders systematically concealed the abuse to p

Five hundred indigenous middle- and high-school students will arrive in early March at a Catholic-run boarding school in Wachapea, an Awajun village in Peru, but the sisters and staff do not know where they will take baths. The Chiriaco River, where the students usually bathe, play and wash their cl

Ireland’s 2016 general election has produced a parliament full of feuding factions and no obvious road to a majority government, spurring lawmakers to warn on Sunday that the country could face a protracted political deadlock followed by a second election. For the first time in Irish electoral

Even in the midst of bombings, Vatican ambassadors stay put, risking their lives while working to end what Pope Francis has termed a “piecemeal” World War III, said the Vatican minister of foreign affairs. “Let’s not be kidding ourselves about what the stakes are here: If we

The Italian Senate passed on Feb. 25 a controversial bill that grants legal recognition to nonmarried heterosexual and homosexual couples, after sponsors removed a clause that would have allowed a nonbiological parent in a homosexual union to adopt the biological children of his or her partner. &bul

A pastoral planning process—Ministry 2025—has begun in the Diocese of Sioux City, Iowa. According to the Rev. Brent Lingle, diocesan director of pastoral planning, the diocese recently unveiled a draft pastoral plan that strives to create parishes “where the faith is lived out, gro