Associated Press

A Connecticut newspaper exposed one of the Catholic Church's biggest sexual abuse scandals by reporting 25 years ago.

A Madrid-based law firm will conduct a year-long inquiry into past and present sexual abuse committed by Spain's Roman Catholic clergy, members of religious orders, teachers and other people associated with the church.

In Michigan, Hood was baptized, given other sacraments and swiftly ordained again to the priesthood within days in 2020. But the Archdiocese of Detroit still hasn't heard from hundreds of people whose rites at St. Anastasia are considered invalid, despite outreach efforts and publicity.

Pope Francis on Sunday hailed health care workers as heroes for their service every day, not just during the pandemic, asking the public in St. Peter's Square to join with him in applause.

Defense lawyers in the Vatican's fraud and extortion trial on Feb. 18 accused Pope Francis of violating their clients' human rights by issuing four secret, executive decrees that gave prosecutors free reign to investigate in ways that deprived the suspects of basic legal guarantees.

The Vatican's big fraud and extortion trial resumes Friday after exposing some unseemly realities of how the Holy See operates with a new spy story taking center stage.

The debate over whether to deter or accommodate minors arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border without their parents has pitted Florida's Catholic governor against the state's highest-ranking Roman Catholic.

 Cuba's leaders have launched an unusual series of neighborhood meetings across the island to debate a measure that would legalize same-sex marriage and adoption.

A consortium of groups said they hoped recent national inquiries in Germany and France, and planned ones in Spain and Portugal, would pressure the Italian Catholic Church to open its archives to independent investigators to ascertain the scope of the problem.

Face coverings will not be required during public Masses at Roman Catholic churches in the Boston area starting Feb. 28, the Archdiocese of Boston announced Thursday.

Fordham University, a Jesuit institution in New York, has named its new president, Tania Tetlow. She is the first woman and first layperson to lead the school in its 181-year history.

A lay committee looking into historic child sex abuse in the Portuguese Catholic Church said Thursday that during its first month of work it received allegations from 214 people.

Pope Francis' first foreign trip of the year is to the Mediterranean island nation of Malta, the Vatican said in announcing an April 2-3 trip that had originally been scheduled for 2020 but was postponed because of the pandemic.

A report on decades of clergy sexual abuse in Germany that shone an unflattering spotlight on retired Pope Benedict XVI has added to already strong pressure there for the church to reconsider Catholic rules on issues including homosexuality and women's roles.

Pope Francis on Sunday decried the genital mutilation of millions of girls and the trafficking of women for sex, including openly on city streets, so others can make money off of them.

Spain's prime minister wants to task the nation's ombudsman with the country's first official investigation into the depth of sexual abuse committed by Roman Catholic clergy.

Pope Francis has notched a new first in his nearly nine-year-old papacy — an appearance as a TV talk show guest.

A prominent German archbishop advocated loosening celibacy rules for Catholic priests in comments published Feb. 3 before a meeting of a German reform assembly.

An Italian appeals court has definitively annulled the arrest warrant for the prime suspect in the Vatican's big fraud and embezzlement trial. 

Pakistani police widened their manhunt Monday for two unidentified assailants who shot and killed a Christian priest and wounded another the previous day in the country's northwest.