WASHINGTON – In a Feb. 16 statement, U.S. Catholic Church leaders said they were encouraged that President Donald Trump may be considering an executive order to protect religious freedom and said they would be grateful if he would move forward with the pledge that his administration would "do everything in its power to defend and protect religious liberty."

WASHINGTON – Saying “religious freedom in America has suffered years of unprecedented erosion,” U.S. Catholic bishops have posted an online letter for Catholics to send to President Donald Trump urging him to sign an executive order promoting religious freedom.

WASHINGTON – On Thursday, U.S. President Donald Trump insisted that protecting religious freedom is a U.S. priority, while defending his recent halt of refugee admissions as a necessary step to protect that freedom.

VATICAN CITY – While violent persecution against Christians assails swaths of territory the Middle East and Africa, one Vatican official says that Western nations face a different type of oppression, marked by the push to eliminate religion from public life.

OTTAWA – Canada's former ambassador of religious freedom told a Senate committee that Canada’s focus on religious freedom has “diminished” since the Office of Religious Freedom was closed in May.

Beating the Christmas rush in Ottawa this year seems to mean wrapping up new transgender laws in time for the holidays. It’s hard to find anything merry about that.

OTTAWA – An Orthodox Christian father has lost a religious freedom and parental rights case before the Ontario Superior Court even though the judge agreed his rights were encroached.

WASHINGTON – The incoming Trump administration’s immigration policy must avoid a religious registry or any “stigmatizing” of religious groups, religious freedom advocates insist.

OTTAWA – A University of Toronto professor at the centre of a transgender storm issued a stark warning for religious groups that are out of step with society’s politically correct agenda.

Canadians living jam-packed lives barely have time to read their watches, much less pore over voluminous legal judgments on pressing matters of the day.

WASHINGTON – A pair of Catholic physicians argue that changes in the way health care is paid for and stronger relationships between doctors and their patients will do more to improve people's health and uphold the sanctity of life than bureaucratic government-run programs and expensive insurance policies.

Fall temperatures will empty beaches in southern France and bring a natural end to the burkini furor and ugly confrontations that have triggered a worldwide debate. But the underlying tension won’t be folded away with the beach blankets. And that is unsettling.

OTTAWA – REAL Women of Canada is drawing attention to discrimination Christians face by mounting a petition calling on the House of Commons to protect the religious beliefs and conscience rights of Christians.

OTTAWA – The Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society will not seek an appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada of a recent court decision that prevents it from barring graduates of a proposed law school at Trinity Western University (TWU) from practising law in the province.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. State Department warned that religion-based terrorists as well as some governments across the globe are threatening the liberties of religious minorities.