Residents of the New Jersey town where a priest was found dead in the kitchen of his church's rectory Friday morning should exercise caution, Morris County Prosecutor Robert Bianchi said. Due to the nature of the wounds, the death of the Rev. Ed Hinds, 61, of St. Patrick's Church "in all likelihood was in fact a homicide," Bianchi told reporters at a news conference Friday afternoon. He said investigators believe Hinds was killed sometime between 11 p.m. Thursday and 8 ...

Senior Catholic bishops are threatening to oppose the health care bill under consideration in Congress if lawmakers don't make significant reforms regarding federally funded abortions and other issues. "No one should be required to pay for or participate in abortion," the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops said in a letter Thursday to members of Congress. The letter follows a recent Senate Finance Committee vote that defeated Republican amendments that Democrats said would broaden current restrictions of federal funding for ...

Episcopal churches in California and Minnesota moved toward appointing gay bishops over the weekend, less than a month after the denomination lifted a self-imposed freeze on promoting openly gay clergy into the top ranks of the church. The Diocese of Los Angeles, one of the largest in the country, included a gay man and a lesbian on its short list for assistant bishop positions Sunday. A day earlier, the Diocese of Minnesota put a lesbian priest on its list of ...