Daniel DiNardo

In his final address as president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston told his fellow bishops that it has been "an honor to serve you, even in the difficult times."

Though most prelates who have resigned or been removed for sexual misconduct or cover-up no longer attend the biannual U.S. bishops' meeting, only one has been formally disinvited. And one convicted bishop continues to show up.

Distinctly Catholic: It was the best of our church. It was the worst of our church. It was a time for evangelization and a time for churlish retrenchment. It was last Thursday.

U.S. bishops' conference officials drew up a plan to address sex abuse that was a ploy, deliberately circumventing Vatican authority, according to a new Pope Francis biography by Austen Ivereigh.

An update to the Program on Priestly Formation, a progress report on the establishment of a nationwide, third-party reporting system for abuse or misconduct by bishops, and a vote on new leadership for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops are on the agenda for the bishops' fall general assembly.

A Texas grand jury has declined to indict the onetime deputy to Cardinal Daniel DiNardo on charges he sexually assaulted a married woman in a case that raised questions about consent in the #MeToo era.

Signs of the Times: I am afraid that others may soon respond to mass shootings that same way I do, the same way we do to other gun violence — ignore it and move on. No matter how horrible something is, if it is repeated time and time again, we get accustomed to it.