The Associated Press

The number of new virus infections rose worldwide along with fears of a weakening global economy, even as cases in China dropped to their lowest level in six weeks on Mar. 2 and hundreds of patients at the outbreak's epicenter were released from hospitals.

Pope Francis told the Legion of Christ religious order Feb. 29 it still has a long road of reform ahead, making clear that 10 years of Vatican-mandated rehabilitation hadn't purged it of the toxic influences of its pedophile founder.

Ernesto Cardenal, the renowned poet and Roman Catholic cleric who became a symbol of revolutionary verse in Nicaragua and around Latin America, and whose suspension from the priesthood by St. John Paul II lasted over three decades, died Mar. 1. He was 95.

Native islanders on Guam are expecting to get long-awaited compensation from the U.S. government for their suffering at the hands of imperial Japan during World War II.

Amusement parks, sports events, religious gatherings, even school. More and more things in a growing swath of the world are now affected by the new virus. And that's messing with global financial markets as basic business, trade and tourism suffers from the disruptions.

A Rhode Island man alleges that he was molested as a child by a Roman Catholic priest who also trafficked children for sex while church leaders looked the other way, according to a lawsuit filed against the Diocese of Providence.

A congressman is asking the Department of Justice to investigate settlements to two men who say they were victims of clergy abuse at a Catholic school in Mississippi.

U.S. Attorney General William Barr warned a group of Christian broadcasters on Feb. 26 that the decline of religion in America is undermining liberal democracy.

President Donald Trump refused Feb. 25 to speak out publicly against an Indian citizenship law pushed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi that has sparked deadly protests over discrimination against Muslims during the president's visit.

Louise Aamot Charbonneau couldn't make her annual trip to the South Dakota Legislature this year to confront lawmakers with her story of surviving childhood rape and abuse at the hands of priests and nuns at a boarding school for Native Americans during the 1950s and 1960s.

The net assets of West Virginia's Roman Catholic Diocese dropped by $4.8 million during a fiscal year that coincided with the resignation of its bishop amid allegations of sexual and financial misconduct, an audit shows.

The Supreme Court said Feb. 24 it will hear a dispute over a Philadelphia Catholic agency that won't place foster children with same-sex couples.

The 156 young men who call St. Charles Borromeo Seminary home are deeply aware of both the sacred and the profane. They appear unflinchingly optimistic, reverent and committed, yet they prepare to enter ministry at a time when scandals have driven the faithful from pews.

Fr. Joshua Whitfield is a husband, a father of four and a relentlessly good-natured priest beloved by the parishioners. He is, he says, "an ecclesiastical zoo exhibit," one of the tiny community of married priests — men who slipped through a clerical loophole created 40 years ago — that even most Catholics don't know exist.

Schools were shuttered, churches told worshipers to stay away and some mass gatherings were banned as cases of a new virus swelled Feb. 21 in South Korea, the newest front in a widening global outbreak.

An attorney for New Orleans' Roman Catholic archdiocese Feb. 20 strongly defended the New Orleans Saints' public-relations help in dealing with the clergy sex abuse crisis, saying the legal effort to unseal hundreds of confidential emails between them is aimed at trying to shame those "who had the audacity" to back the church.

More than 150 historians and researchers have signed up to access the soon-to-open Vatican archives of Pope Pius XII, evidence of the intense scholarly interest into the World War II-era pope and his record during the Holocaust, officials said Feb. 20.

The presidential election is shaping up to be a tough one for those who see it literally as a matter of life and death.

Three deaf victims of sexual abuse by priests in Argentina wrapped up a string of meetings with United Nations human rights officials in Geneva Feb.19, hoping to build pressure on the Vatican — and Pope Francis himself — to come clean about the crimes committed against them.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, filed for bankruptcy Wednesday, six months after disclosing it had paid millions of dollars to people sexually abused as children by its clerics.