The Associated Press

Spain’s ombudsman said March 13 that an independent commission set up a year ago to investigate historic sex abuse by the Catholic church has collected testimonies from 445 victims, as the nation tackles an issue other European countries acted on long ago.

Germany’s Catholic bishops and lay representatives gathered on March 9 for the final meeting of a potentially groundbreaking reform assembly that has been marked by tensions between liberalizers and conservatives and is drawing increasingly open opposition from the Vatican.

Like other victims of child abuse by priests, 52-year-old Stéphane said getting an official recognition from France’s Catholic Church of what happened is helping him get better, at last.

Pope Francis has significantly increased the Vatican's female workforce, including in high-ranking positions, but women face continued resistance from the all-male Catholic hierarchy to access leadership positions in the church, according to Vatican statistics and independent surveys released March 8.

Poland’s prime minister on March 8 stepped in to defend the good name of St. John Paul II, a "great fellow-countryman," following claims that he knew of sex abuse of minors by priests under his authority while archbishop in Poland and sought to conceal it.

Pope St. John Paul II knew about sexual abuse of children by priests under his authority and sought to conceal it when he was an archbishop in his native Poland, according to a television news report.

The Vatican and Greece finalized a deal March 7 for the return of three sculpture fragments from the Parthenon that have been in the collection of the Vatican Museums for two centuries, the latest case of a Western museum bowing to demands for restitution.

Pope Francis said Feb. 25 that financial misconduct by Vatican personnel harms the church’s mission and scandalizes the faithful, doubling down on the need for trials in the tiny city state to find justice.

Pope Francis will visit Hungary at the end of April, the Vatican said Feb. 27, in a trip expected to focus on migration to Europe and Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Pope Francis has essentially nationalized all assets and property owned by Vatican departments and affiliated institutions, declaring them to be sovereign patrimony owned by the Holy See and not any individual or office.

Pope Francis canceled one audience and skipped speeches he was set to deliver Feb. 23 because of a bad cold, the Vatican said.

A suspect has been arrested in the killing of a Catholic bishop who was fatally shot over the weekend in Southern California in a crime that shocked the Los Angeles religious and immigrant communities.

A $50 million shrine built to honor Stanley Francis Rother — killed by three masked assassins who entered his rectory during Guatemala's civil war — is expected to draw thousands of pilgrims to his home state.

More than 4,800 individuals may have been victims of child sex abuse in the Portuguese Catholic Church and 512 alleged victims have already come forward to speak out, an expert panel looking into historic abuse in the church said Monday.

The umbrella group of Catholic religious orders in France is demanding church authorities assume responsibility for horrific evidence of sexual, spiritual and psychological abuse in L'Arche.

Pope Francis hopes Cuban authorities will release and grant amnesty to people arrested and sentenced after the historic protests that took place in 2021, Cardinal Beniamino Stella, who traveled to the island as the pontiff’s special envoy, said February 8.

A Nicaraguan court has sentenced four Roman Catholic priests to 10 years in prison on conspiracy charges stemming from long-standing government allegations that the church backed illegal pro-democracy protests.

President Joe Biden delivered a message of unity at the National Prayer Breakfast on Feb. 2, the first time the annual event has been held since its leadership and structure were overhauled to distance it from a controversial private religious group.

For the lone pastor in this fragile, starkly beautiful environment, the challenge is to fulfill the church's historical mission of ministering to those in crisis while addressing the pressing and divisive contemporary challenge of climate change.

Australian police plan to ask a judge to ban gay rights protesters from demonstrating outside the funeral of Cardinal George Pell in Sydney on Feb. 2 due to public safety concerns.