In the end only one country, India, blocked agreement, conference officials said.

As the league struggled to return to a geographic based set up, conference officials found an old problem.

These national conference officials make up an international Executive Committee.

The new name for the conference will take effect June 1, conference officials said.

There is no plan at this time to devote a special Sunday for priests to speak about the issue, conference officials said.

He spent this past regular season as a Big 12 Conference official.

Conference officials are still given to extravagant statements about the meeting's significance.

Still, conference officials and some other rabbis said they considered the decision to be of great symbolic importance.

A senior conference official reported that agreement was close on a number of other issues discussed in the conference's final document, including abortion.

"He's definitely a kid on the radar," one Western Conference official said.