Frank Langfitt

The challenges that lie ahead

August 18, 2019 at 8:08 p.m.

The next pope will inherit a church facing serious challenges, such as the polarization between liberals and conservatives, competition with evangelical Protestants, the secularization of Western Europe and the clergy's...

Probe of elections chief is defended

January 30, 2019 at 3:29 p.m.

The head of the state elections board defended yesterday the panel's decision to bring in an investigator to look into unspecified "complaints." But a growing chorus of critics called the...

U.S. bishops endorse 2nd sex-abuse audit

March 30, 2019 at 11:22 a.m.

Accused of backsliding in their commitment to protect children from pedophile priests, the nation's Roman Catholic bishops voted overwhelmingly yesterday to begin a second round of audits to ensure that...

Bishops lauded for child safety

March 29, 2019 at 10:19 p.m.

WASHINGTON - The vast majority of Roman Catholic bishops have complied with orders to implement safeguards designed to protect children from sexual abuse, according to an audit released yesterday by...

Catholic bishop calls for healing church rift

March 30, 2019 at 7:07 a.m.

WASHINGTON - In a speech stressing hope and conciliation, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops urged his colleagues yesterday to re-establish a sense of Christian community in...

Prosperity and pain

January 30, 2019 at 5:10 p.m.

Second of two parts BEIJING -- Just off South Small Street along Full Blossom Lane once stood the red-brick house of the three Gong brothers. They and their families shared...

A profane fate for a sacred site

January 30, 2019 at 5:10 p.m.

BEIJING - One morning this spring, a handful of government workers in camouflage fatigues and yellow hard hats marched to No. 99 Full Blossom Lane, mounted the roof of a...

China razes alleys, bulldozes way of life

January 30, 2019 at 5:10 p.m.

First of two parts BEIJING - Song Guirong was fast asleep in her home when a thunderclap of splintering wood and falling chunks of concrete the size of dinner plates...

Powell aims to reassure Pakistan

January 30, 2019 at 5:43 p.m.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Secretary of State Colin L. Powell assured Pakistan yesterday that moderate elements of the Taliban could be included in a future broad-based Afghan government, apparently trying to...

Afghan clerics say bin Laden should go

January 30, 2019 at 5:50 p.m.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Faced with the threat of an American military strike, Afghanistan's senior Islamic clerics recommended yesterday that the ruling Taliban persuade accused terrorist Osama bin Laden to leave...

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