Thomas J Reese

At a time when Roman Catholic bishops are waging political wars against contraception and same-sex marriage, one of the church's most hard-line generals was named Tuesday to head its historically important Baltimore archdiocese. The Vatican appointed...

Church officials and other religious-based groups are gearing up to fight an order by the Obama administration that they include birth control in employee health plans — a requirement some say could threaten the protection of other moral beliefs and...

In a matter of months, weeks or even days, a new bishop could be appointed to take charge of America's oldest Roman Catholic archdiocese. Cardinal William H. Keeler submitted his resignation letter to the Vatican more than a year ago - a church...

Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien will receive his pallium at St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican tomorrow, a capstone event marking his connection to the Catholic hierarchy and to the church worldwide. More than 100 Marylanders have traveled to Rome to attend...

Even as some Roman Catholic Church leaders say the new policy proposed by U.S. bishops for dealing with sexual abuse by priests doesn't go far enough, others are complaining that the proposals conflict with the church's own law and religious teachings. A...

DALLAS - The elected leader of the nation's Roman Catholic bishops told them yesterday that the church's leadership is largely to blame for the sexual abuse scandal roiling American parishes - a crisis he called "perhaps the gravest we have faced." "My...

Wilton D. Gregory has been blazing trails in the Catholic church for nearly 20 years. In the early 1980s, at age 36, he became the youngest Catholic bishop in the country. Last year, he became the first African-American elected to lead the U.S. bishops'...

The Vatican has rejected at least part of a proposed policy on child sexual abuse adopted by the U.S. Catholic bishops in June because it conflicts with the rights of priests protected by church law, according to church sources. Vatican officials are...

Pope Benedict XVI selected yesterday a San Francisco bishop with a reputation as a conservative theologian to take over his former job - one of the most powerful in the Catholic hierarchy and instrumental in shaping the direction of the church....