VATICAN CITY – A greater presence of women in decision-making roles in the church might have helped remove the “veil of masculine secrecy” that covered priestly sex abuse cases, a front-page commentary in the Vatican newspaper said.Read More

WASHINGTON – Pope Benedict XVI held an unscheduled meeting with victims of priestly sexual abuse, shortly after pledging the church’s continued efforts to help heal the wounds caused by such acts.Read More

WASHINGTON – Pope Benedict XVI held an unscheduled meeting with victims of priestly sexual abuse, shortly after pledging the church’s continued efforts to help heal the wounds caused by such acts.Read More

When Monsignor Robert L. Hartnett was appointed executive director of schools planning for the Archdiocese of Baltimore in early 2009, the task was unenviable: head a team that would develop recommendations concerning school consolidations.Read More

As the Cold War raged in the late 1970s and early 1980s, 1,000 nuns packed secret messages into tubes of toothpaste and bits of candy – smuggling the reports of human rights abuses and church persecution out of Communist-dominated Lithuania.Read More

ANDREWS AIR FORCE BASE, Md. – Welcomed by U.S. President George W. Bush and an array of church officials, Pope Benedict XVI began his first pastoral visit to the United States as pope April 15.Read More

In the expansive landscape of religious freedom in the United States following independence, the vigorous spread of Catholicism can be witnessed in original letters and documents now on display in a special exhibit commemorating the 200th anniversary of the Archdiocese of Baltimore.Read More

In her new book, “The Abbess of Andalusia,” Lorraine Murray aims to “uncover the self-portrait Flannery (O’Connor) created in the daily stream of letters that poured out of Andalusia,” the Georgia farm where the writer lived for 13 years until her death in 1964, when she was only 39.Read More