In the wake of the largest pro-life demonstration ever held in Ireland, cracks have begun to emerge in the coalition government’s plans to legislate for abortion.

The Catholic Church has never encouraged anyone to use ivory for religious devotional objects and, in fact, teaches that animals must be treated with respect, the Vatican spokesman said in a letter to “friends of the elephants.”

Pro-life activist Lila Rose was just a child when she first became aware of the tragedy of abortion.

Five Catholic bishops cautioned Nigerian government leaders about a series of statements from Pentecostal and indigenous religious leaders portending tragedy.

The desire to see and know God is innate in everyone, even nonbelievers, Pope Benedict said.

Pope Benedict has asked Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, to lead his Lenten retreat Feb. 17-23.

The Catholic owners of an Illinois health services consulting company have won a temporary restraining order against the state’s contraceptive mandate.

Like the individual path to holiness, the ecumenical path to Christian unity requires justice, kindness and humility, Pope Benedict told members of a pilgrimage from the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland.

To evangelize in today’s world, Catholics “need to recover their sense of ardor for Jesus risen from the dead,” Father Robert Barron told a conference in Salt Lake City.

A Catholic bishop in war-torn Mali said “people are hiding in their homes, unable to venture out.”

U.S. cyclist Lance Armstrong’s admission to doping is just the tip of the iceberg, since high-stakes commercial interests pressure almost every professional cyclist into the illegal practice, said a Vatican official.

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that the British government violated the rights of an airline flight attendant by failing to protect her right to conscience and religion.

A cover of Italy’s Vanity Fair magazine shows Archbishop Georg Ganswein.

Worshippers stand near candles in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, West Bank, Jan. 18.

Deploring war, civil conflict and poverty around the world, Pope Benedict told foreign ambassadors to the Vatican that peace-building requires charity, religious liberty, a proper understanding of human rights and openness to divine love.

Politicians who want to act as if God did not exist and as if there was no such thing as objective moral truths are bound to fail in their efforts to promote the common good, said the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Cardinal Anthony Olubunmi Okogie criticized oil pipeline vandalism that led to the death more than two dozen youths, saying if they had had jobs, their deaths might have been avoided.

The Catholic University of America in Washington is spinning off its current economics and business curriculum from its School of Arts and Sciences and fashioning a new business school with the idea of infusing ethics into all course offerings.

Some Catholic physicians, including those who do not prescribe contraceptives, are questioning the safety of allowing oral contraceptives to be sold over the counter, as the largest body of obstetricians and gynecologists in the U.S. recommended in December.

Soon after a monstrous earthquake devastated much of Haiti three years ago, the mantra among Haitian government leaders and a good share of relief and development agencies was “build back Haiti better.”