Gay ornament pulled from store after protest
Gay, transgender people deserve pastoral care, Pope says
ABOARD THE PAPAL FLIGHT FROM AZERBAIJAN – Catholics who are homosexual, confused about their sexuality or convinced they were born in the wrong body deserve the same attentive pastoral care as anyone else, Pope Francis said.
For years, seminaries and monasteries around France sent students and novices to Monsignor Tony Anatrella, a prominent French priest and therapist who has written disparagingly of gays, if their superiors decided the young men were struggling with homosexuality.
ROME – The Italian government's approval of a controversial bill that grants legal recognition to non-married heterosexual and homosexual couples is a defeat for democracy and family life, an Italian bishop said.
Tense Synod ends by opening door for divorced, punting on gays
VATICAN CITY - A momentous and divided gathering of global bishops ended Oct. 24 by endorsing ways that could lead to greater participation by divorced and remarried Catholics — a major source of friction here — while the 270 bishops declined to take up the even more controversial issue of how and whether to be more welcoming to gays.
WASHINGTON - The top leaders of the National Catholic Committee on Scouting have made an uneasy peace with the Boy Scouts of America's decision July 27 to allow openly gay troop leaders and employees to serve in their ranks at the national level.
NAIROBI, Kenya - Anti-gay activists, including conservative clerics, traditional elders and politicians, are threatening to resist any push by U.S. President Barack Obama for gay rights during his Kenya visit this week, with tactics that range from throwing rotten eggs to marching naked and boycotting his speeches.
VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis is expected to draw a crowd of up to 2 million people to Philadelphia at the end of September’s World Meeting of Families, event organizers said during a visit to Rome June 25.
Gay marriage goes coast to coast in U.S.
WASHINGTON - In a landmark ruling, a divided Supreme Court June 26 said same-sex marriage is constitutional nationwide.
VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis will meet a gay married activist in Paraguay next month, according to an LGBT rights group in that country.
Toxic tar brush of hate
Irish journalist John Waters might be forgiven for skipping the cheering and Guinness-drinking in Dublin after the country’s referendum legalizing gay marriage.
DUBLIN - Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin has said the Church needs a "reality check" after Irish voters overwhelmingly supported same-sex marriage.
CANTERBURY, England - “In Ireland,” says a character in a 1904 George Bernard Shaw play, “the people is the Church, and the Church is the people.”
NEW YORK - St. Patrick’s Day is associated as much with Roman Catholicism as it is with Irish-Americans, but this year some of the faithful aren’t happy with the inclusion of gays and lesbians marching under their own banner for the first time in parades in Boston and New York.
American Archbishop 'very disturbed' by Vatican debate on family
NEW YORK - Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput, a leading culture warrior in the U.S. hierarchy, says he was “very disturbed” by the debate over church teachings on gays and remarried Catholics at this month’s Vatican summit, saying it sent a confusing message and “confusion is of the devil.”