Washington

One of Mary's titles is "Christ's First Disciple," and some of Christ's earliest followers were women, two of whom he appeared to first after his resurrection.

Now, some 2,000 years later, another special group of women, specifically Catholic moms who blog on the Internet about their faith, the Catholic church, as well as the joys and challenges of parenthood and everyday family life, can be considered among Christ's newest evangelizers or "digital disciples."

It can be hard to come up with a list of countries with the most egregious records on religious freedom when some of the world's worst offenders aren't even nation states.

For its annual report of violators, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom counts 15 nations where abuse of religious liberty is "systemic, egregious, and ongoing."

But the commission, which was created by Congress in 1998 as an independent watchdog panel, also wants to highlight the crimes of non-nations, which for the first time this year get their own section in the report.

One U.S. Catholic bishop hailed the repeal of the death penalty in Maryland as "a courageous step toward a culture of life."

The comment, by Bishop Stephen Blaire of Stockton, Calif., chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, was issued Thursday, the day Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, a Democrat, signed the bill that repeals capital punishment.