Regis College at the University of Toronto is training Catholic educators on how to provide pastoral care for students who are homosexual, confused about their sexuality or feel conflicted with their physical gender.

ROME - After months of public debate and protests, the Italian Senate passed a controversial bill that grants legal recognition to non-married heterosexual and homosexual couples.

ROME - Hundreds of thousands of people gathered in Rome's Circus Maximus to protest against a proposed bill that would grant legal recognition to nonmarried heterosexual and homosexual couples and give them the right to adopt children.

VATICAN CITY - Despite media reports that Pope Francis refused the candidate France proposed as its next ambassador to the Holy See — speculating that it is due to the fact Laurent Stefanini is homosexual — the French government has yet to receive an official response from the Vatican, said a spokesperson for the French government.

INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana Republican legislative leaders, under growing pressure from inside and outside the state, said April 2 that lawmakers had reached agreement to amend Indiana’s controversial “religious freedom” law to ensure it does not discriminate against gay and lesbian customers of Indiana businesses.

INDIANAPOLIS - Indiana's Catholic bishops April 1 urged people to show mutual respect for one another and allow "the necessary dialogue" to take place to make sure no one in the state will face discrimination, "whether it is for their sexual orientation or for living their religious beliefs."

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.

VATICAN CITY - Gay marriage was never on the agenda at the recent Synod of Bishops on the Family and the subject “did not cross our minds,” Pope Francis said in a new headline-grabbing interview.

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis said the Catholic Church must find new ways to integrate the divorced and civilly remarried in the life of the church and to make it easier for Catholic families to accept their homosexual members.