WASHINGTON – Advocates for victims of sexual abuse by priests appealed to the pope and the archbishop of Washington on Tuesday to keep a retired Vatican cardinal from celebrating Mass at the nation’s largest Roman Catholic church. Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos is scheduled to celebrate a special Latin Mass on Saturday at the Basilica of…

WASHINGTON – U.S. Supreme Court justices on Monday seemed to split sharply on whether a law school can deny recognition to a Christian student group because it will not let gays join, a case that could determine whether college nondiscrimination policies trump the rights of private organizations to determine who can – and cannot –…

VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI marked the fifth anniversary of his election Monday under the shadow of a clerical sex abuse scandal that has plunged the Catholic Church into its most serious crisis of recent times. Benedict was the host of a lunch at the Vatican with about 60 cardinals, and they cheered and…

(RNS) As Sholom Rubashkin sits in an Iowa jail awaiting a possible life sentence on fraud charges related to his now-defunct kosher meat business, his ultra-Orthodox Jewish support base has ramped up protests over his case. Through an online petition, media outreach, Facebook pages and Twitter feeds, some rabbis have called it a “sacred obligation”…

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