Associated Press

Several Catholic priests held a ceremony blessing same-sex couples outside Cologne Cathedral on the night of Sept. 20 in a protest against the city’s conservative archbishop, Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki.

Women who say they were abused by a once-prominent Jesuit artist said Sept. 19 they had been revictimized by his superiors, saying Pope Francis' recent gestures and an apparent effort to exonerate him publicly showed church pledges of "zero tolerance" were just a "publicity stunt."

The Vatican is considering the findings of a church investigation into "very serious and deeply distressing" child sexual abuse allegations against a former Australian bishop, a church leader said on August 19.

Newly discovered correspondence suggests that World War II-era Pope Pius XII had detailed information from a trusted German Jesuit that up to 6,000 Jews and Poles were being gassed each day in German-occupied Poland. The documentation undercuts the Holy See’s argument that it couldn’t verify diplomatic reports of Nazi atrocities to denounce them.

Russia’s new ambassador to the Vatican met Sept. 18 with Pope Francis for a protocol visit, as signs emerged that the Vatican's Ukraine peace envoy could soon be undertaking a second mission to Moscow.

Pope Francis’ Ukraine peace envoy discussed the need to resume Ukraine grain exports to feed the world's hungry during a meeting Sept. 14 with a Chinese official while on a mission to Beijing, the Vatican said.

Two dark-haired oxen pulled the sacred image of Our Lady of Remedies on a procession float for more than two hours through the small town of Lamego in Portugal's wine country.

A sweeping, year-long study of sex abuse by Catholic priests and others in Switzerland published Sept. 12 has turned up more than 1,000 cases since the mid-20th century, as the Swiss church becomes the latest in Europe to reckon with the abuse scandal.

In an unprecedented move, the Vatican on Sunday beatified a Polish family of nine — a married couple and their small children — who were executed by the Nazis during World War II for sheltering Jews.

The Vatican has ordered an investigation into high-ranking Catholic clerics in Switzerland in connection with sexual abuse, the Swiss Bishops' Conference said on Sept. 10. The group said in a statement that there were allegations against several active and retired bishops as well as other clergy for their handling of abuse cases.

A state grand jury has charged a now-91-year-old disgraced priest with sexually assaulting a teenage boy in 1975, an extraordinary prosecution that could shed new light on what Roman Catholic Church leaders knew about a child sex abuse crisis that persisted for decades and claimed hundreds of victims.

Researchers have discovered new documentation that substantiates reports that Catholic convents and monasteries in Rome sheltered Jews during World War II, providing names of at least 3,200 Jews whose identities have been corroborated by the city's Jewish community, officials said Sept. 7.

Ukraine’s Greek Catholic bishops told Pope Francis on Sept. 6 that his words praising Russia’s imperial past had pained the Ukrainian people, bringing complaints about the Vatican’s diplomatic neutrality in Moscow's war on their country to the heart of the Holy See.

Society has slipped into a culture of indifference so pervasive that "our necks are going to get stiff" from constantly turning away from the suffering of marginalized people, Pope Francis said.

A judge ruled August 30 that a 93-year-old former Roman Catholic cardinal is not competent to stand trial after both prosecutors and defense attorneys determined he suffers from dementia, and dismissed charges he sexually assaulted a teenage boy in Massachusetts decades ago.

Long before it was confiscated by President Daniel Ortega's government in mid-August, the Jesuit-run University of Central America in Nicaragua was a special place for the thousands whose minds and lives it transformed.

The Vatican on August 29 sought to tamp down an uproar that erupted after Pope Francis praised Russia’s imperialist past during a video conference with Russian Catholic youths, insisting that he never intended to encourage modern-day Russian aggression in Ukraine.

An Australian court on August 25 allowed a civil case to proceed against a Catholic archdiocese involving child sex abuse allegations against late Cardinal George Pell.

A former U.S. bishop cleared by the Vatican of multiple allegations he sexually abused minors and teenagers, after a review board under his diocese in Wyoming found that allegations against him were credible, has died.

Nicaragua’s government on August 23 declared the Jesuit religious order illegal and ordered the confiscation of all its property.