In a wide-ranging interview with Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly managing editor Kim Lawton, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Denver comments on the responsibility of American Catholics to be involved in political life.

Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly managing editor Kim Lawton reports from the Democratic National Convention on how Catholic, evangelical, and Jewish groups are responding to the vice presidential nomination of Joe Biden, a pro-choice Roman Catholic.

Earlier this month, in preparation for the riding season, several thousand bikers descended on Paterson, New Jersey to have their bikes blessed by a Catholic priest who is also a biker and who ministers to all those who ride.

The Holy See has played an active global role for centuries. It has permanent observer status at the United Nations and has all the rights of full UN membership except voting.

The Vatican reported this week that the number of Catholics in religious orders around the world continued to decline. But there are a few places where the reverse is true. Betty Rollin found a Dominican teaching order in Nashville fairly bursting with dedicated young nuns.

Wangari Maathai became the first African woman to win the Nobel Prize for peace. She is a conservationist whose movement has caused the planting of 30 million trees in Kenya and also helped lead to free elections. Recently, Maathai visited Chicago, as Judy Valente reports.

Catholics of a certain age grew up hearing the Mass only in Latin. But since the 1960s, priests have been allowed to say the Mass in Latin only with the permission of their bishop. The Vatican is now loosening those restrictions, so the Latin Mass may soon become more widely available.

Benedict said that in Francis's hometown, the "city of peace," he felt a duty to make a heartfelt appeal for peace.

There is a group of Benedictine nuns in Missouri who bake and sell millions of Communion wafers, small and large. But some would-be communicants complained that they are allergic to the gluten in the wheat in the nun's wafers. So they could not receive Communion. For the sisters that was a challenge.

Religion continues to be a key factor in American politics, especially during election season. Today, there is vigorous political organizing inside Latino churches. Many Hispanics favor more liberal immigration policies than most Republicans have supported. But as Kim Lawton reports, it's not yet clear how that will affect Hispanic voting.