Catholic Church

Italy has long been known as Europe's "Wild West" of fertility medicine. This is the country that for years boasted the world's oldest new mom, and where a leading doctor speaks cavalierly of his plans to clone babies. No more. With the Vatican nudging it along, the Italian Parliament on Thursday reined in "medically assisted" reproduction by imposing controls that are among the most restrictive on the continent.

WHEN Times editors assigned me to the religion beat, I believed God had answered my prayers. As a serious Christian, I had cringed at some of the coverage in the mainstream media. Faith frequently was treated like a circus, even a freak show. I wanted to report objectively and respectfully about how belief shapes people's lives. Along the way, I believed, my own faith would grow deeper and sturdier. But during the eight years I covered religion, something very different happened.

The woman wailed outside the ruins of the Notre Dame Cathedral of Port-au-Prince, the iconic Roman Catholic church that symbolized Haiti's religious fervor. "This is what God did!" she cried Friday morning. "See what God can do!" Tuesday's earthquake brought down the roof of the enormous pink-and-cream church, filling the apse and nave with tons of rubble. The quake punched out its vivid stained glass windows, twisted its wrought-iron fencing and sliced brick walls like cake.

Alicia Torres must raise $94,000 in order to take a vow of poverty. Drawn to the Roman Catholic sisterhood while she was a student at Loyola University here, Torres faces the same barrier as many others considering such a religious life: college debt. Today, Torres and a group of friends will run Chicago's Half Marathon -- 13.1 miles along the lakefront -- in hopes of receiving enough pledges to pay off $94,000 in student loans. "You can't live a vow of poverty with a bunch of debt," said Torres, a 2007 graduate.

Encircling the Gothic church where Inquisition trials were held in Rome four centuries ago is the Catholic clergy's very own garment district. Here popes get their button-down cassocks, cardinals their crimson birettas and nuns their gray habits. Items, costing a few dozen to a few thousand euros, hang in windows decked with chalices and candlesticks. But Christmas sales aren't what they used to be. The ranks of the priesthood are diminishing.

Cardinal Roger Mahony is expected to testify in a clergy sexual abuse lawsuit in Fresno today, marking only the second time he has taken the witness stand to answer questions before jurors about alleged molestation by priests. The Fresno lawsuit was brought by two brothers who say they were molested by a priest for 14 years at a church in Wasco, a small town north of Bakersfield.

Wading back into the growing debate over illegal immigration, Cardinal Roger M. Mahony on Tuesday denounced what he called "hysterical" anti-immigrant sentiment sweeping California and the nation. In an interview on the eve of Ash Wednesday, Mahony said he planned to use the first day of the Lenten season to call on all 288 parishes in the Los Angeles Archdiocese, the nation's largest, to fast, pray and press for humane immigration reform. U.S.

Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, was named Tuesday by a leading religion Web site as one of the nation's nine "worst bishops" in handling clergy sexual abuse cases. Beliefnet.com said that despite Mahony's recent efforts to take a tough stand on reform, he had failed to promptly dismiss at least three priests who reportedly admitted to sexual abuse of minors.

A Catholic bishop detained numerous times for his ties to the Vatican has died in police custody, according to a religious news agency and a monitoring group. Han Dingxiang, 70, from Hebei province just south of Beijing, reportedly died Sunday of cancer. A few close relatives were called to the hospital, but contact with fellow church members had been cut off after his most recent detention in September 2005.

One of Roman Catholicism's most tantalizing secrets came to an anticlimactic end Monday as the Vatican unveiled a 62-line handwritten account by Lucia de Jesus dos Santos of what she saw as a 10-year-old shepherd in a pasture near Fatima, Portugal, on July 13, 1917. The text describes a radiant Virgin Mary, a flaming sword and a "Bishop dressed in White," presumed to be a pope, who leads a sad procession of priests and nuns up a mountain through a half-ruined city strewn with corpses.

The woman wailed outside the ruins of the Notre Dame Cathedral of Port-au-Prince, the iconic Roman Catholic church that symbolized Haiti's religious fervor. "This is what God did!" she cried Friday morning. "See what God can do!" Tuesday's earthquake brought down the roof of the enormous pink-and-cream church, filling the apse and nave with tons of rubble. The quake punched out its vivid stained glass windows, twisted its wrought-iron fencing and sliced brick walls like cake.

The former vicar of clergy for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles testified under a grant of immunity last week before a federal grand jury investigating the church's role in sexual abuse by priests, according to a person familiar with the matter. Msgr. Richard Loomis, whose responsibilities as a high-ranking aide to Cardinal Roger Mahony included overseeing sexual-abuse cases against fellow priests, testified Dec. 16 under "use immunity," meaning his testimony cannot be used against him in a criminal prosecution, said the source, who asked not to be named because grand juries are confidential.

The government of Israel seems to be embracing the Christmas spirit. This week it is organizing carols and tree giveaways in Jerusalem, bus service to Bethlehem and even a fireworks show in Nazareth with an apparent eye on burnishing the nation's reputation for religious diversity. But Israel won't be giving the Christmas gift near the top of the Vatican's wish list this year: possession of a Mt. Zion holy site where Jesus is believed to have gathered his disciples for the Last Supper.

The church bells rang all afternoon. Archbishop Rafael Romo Muñoz was on his way to say a Mass marking the transfer of Father Raymundo Figueroa, the beloved priest at Santisimo Sacramento parish. Hundreds of men, women and children answered the call of the bells. But they weren't there to greet the bishop. They chained the gates and locked the doors. They hung signs. "This church belongs to the people; not the church," read one. When Romo stepped out of his SUV, 20 robed priests from the Tijuana diocese tried to form a procession, but burly men blocked their way. The archbishop tried to say a prayer, but the crowd drowned him out with bullhorns and bells.

Leaders of the Roman Catholic Church in Dublin engaged in a widespread cover-up of abuses by clergy members for decades, a "scandal on an astonishing scale" that even saw officials taking out insurance policies to protect dioceses against future claims by the victims, a commission reported Thursday after a three-year investigation. The commission, which investigated how the church and state agencies handled three decades of endemic child abuse by priests in the Irish capital, also criticized police and social and health authorities who, with a few exceptions, it said, ignored complaints or simply referred allegations back to the church hierarchy.

The challah was blessed, the Manischewitz wine was poured, the candles were lighted. It could have been any Shabbat dinner in Los Angeles, were it not for the fact that it took place midweek and the room was full of Catholic schoolteachers. The 34 teachers were participants in Bearing Witness, a seminar designed for educators in Catholic schools learning to teach about anti-Semitism and the history of the relationship between Jews and Catholics. Created in 1996 by the Anti-Defamation League, the seminars are now conducted across the United States.

The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington said Wednesday that it would be unable to continue the social service programs it runs for the District of Columbia if the city refused to change a proposed same-sex marriage law. The threat could affect tens of thousands of people the church helps with adoption, homelessness and healthcare. Under the legislation, which the City Council is expected to pass next month, religious organizations would not be required to perform or make space available for same-sex weddings.

In a remarkable bid to attract disillusioned members of the Anglican Communion, the Vatican announced Tuesday that it would establish a special arrangement that would allow Anglicans to join the Catholic Church while preserving their liturgy and spiritual heritage, including married priests. The worldwide Anglican Communion, which includes the 2.3 million-member U.S. Episcopal Church, has been racked by years of conflict over the interpretation of Scripture that has led to clashes over female clergy and, recently, the rights of gays to serve as clergy.

Alicia Torres must raise $94,000 in order to take a vow of poverty. Drawn to the Roman Catholic sisterhood while she was a student at Loyola University here, Torres faces the same barrier as many others considering such a religious life: college debt. Today, Torres and a group of friends will run Chicago's Half Marathon -- 13.1 miles along the lakefront -- in hopes of receiving enough pledges to pay off $94,000 in student loans. "You can't live a vow of poverty with a bunch of debt," said Torres, a 2007 graduate.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Sacramento is home to nearly 1 million Catholics. On a typical Sunday, less than 137,000 can be found in church. Now, using a strategy straight from the secular playbook, its leaders hope to lure back those who have drifted. The diocese and nearly a dozen others across the country are preparing to air several thousand prime-time TV commercials in English and Spanish, inviting inactive Catholics to return to their religious roots. In addition to Sacramento, dioceses in Chicago, Omaha, Providence, R.I., and four other cities will launch the "Catholics Come Home" advertising blitz during Advent, the period before Christmas.