VATICAN CITY – Israel postponed a major negotiating session with Vatican officials on questions regarding the church’s legal and financial status in the Holy Land. The Vatican expressed disappointment at yet another delay in the on-again, off-again talks, which began 15 years ago. The meeting of the joint commission on church-state issues had been scheduled...Read More

DUBLIN, Ireland – Bishop Donal Murray of Limerick has resigned after weeks of pressure over his handling of clerical sexual abuse when he served in the Dublin Archdiocese.Read More

MICHIGAN CITY, Ind. – About 20 death penalty opponents gathered in the bitter cold in Michigan City for a peaceful protest and to pray as the state of Indiana prepared for the first execution in Indiana since 2007.Read More

VATICAN CITY – Church leaders, along with the World Health Organization, have expressed concern over the increased rates of drug-resistant tuberculosis worldwide. Pope Benedict XVI, speaking at his general audience March 21, said the latest reports show that more work is still needed to effectively treat those who suffer from the disease. World Tuberculosis Day,...Read More

ALLENDALE, N.J. – A New Jersey health care initiative has reached its goal of getting Catholic hospitals in the state to donate umbilical-cord and placenta blood for adult stem-cell research. During a March 9 press conference at the Elie Katz Umbilical Cord Blood Program facility in Allendale, Archbishop John J. Myers of Newark and Father...Read More

WASHINGTON – As a vote neared on a bipartisan abortion amendment to the Senate’s version of health care reform legislation, three leading U.S. bishops said the proposed revision “simply corrects ... grave departures from current federal policy.”Read More

WASHINGTON – Thirteen human embryonic stem-cell lines have been approved for use in federally funded research and approval of many more lines is expected to follow, the head of the National Institutes of Health announced Dec. 2.Read More

Members of Baltimore’s Hispanic community will honor the late Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero of San Salvador in El Salvador with a procession and Mass in Fells Point March 24 on the 27th anniversary of his assassination. An outspoken critic of human rights abuses by the Salvadoran military who was murdered while celebrating Mass, Archbishop Romero...Read More