Junno Arocho Esteves

In the first week of Leo pontificate, the leading expert on the abuse crisis — as well as several survivors and victims of abuse — has come to the defense of the newly elected Roman pontiff after two organizations advocating for victims of abuse raised concerns regarding Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost's record on the matter not long after he was elected.

While members of the College of Cardinals famously take an oath, so do Vatican staff members, including the elevator operator, doctors and attendants, who will be assisting with the everyday tasks and needs of the cardinals during the conclave which begins May 7.

While the fruits of the reforms made throughout his 12-year papacy are yet to be determined, what can't be denied is his pastoral approach that tried to place victims at the heart of the church's response to clergy sexual abuse.

As Pope Francis continues to recover at Rome's Gemelli Hospital, Catholics in the pope's Diocese of Rome and around the world joined in prayer for his health.
 

Thousands of people gathered Feb. 16 in the small village of Pyin Oo Lwin in Myanmar to pay their final respects to Father Donald Martin Ye Naing Win, a priest who was found stabbed to death in a targeted attack.
 

In the lead up to the 20th anniversary of the death of Sister Stang, who is considered by many as a "Martyr of the Amazon," a relic containing blood-soaked soil from the site of her murder was enshrined at the Basilica of St. Bartholomew on Tiber Island in Rome on Jan. 10.

An official of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith said Pope Francis' decision to suppress Sodalitium Christianae Vitae was based on the fact that there was no authentic charism, or spiritual gifts, in the controversial lay movement founded by Luis Fernando Figari in 1971.
 

The controversial lay movement Sodalitium Christianae Vitae was forced to confirm news that it was suppressed by Pope Francis after two of its members leaked the news to a Catholic news outlet.
 

In a statement released Jan. 16 by the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, the Catholic Ordinaries of the Holy Land said they hoped the ceasefire "will mark an important end to the violence that has caused immeasurable suffering."
 

The pontiff's message, which was recorded amid the final days of the Synod on Synodality in Rome, was posted on the YouTube channel of the Archdioceses of Lima Oct. 24. Francis said Gutiérrez was a man who "knew how to stay silent when he needed to be silent, who knew how to suffer when he had to suffer, and who managed to bring forward so much apostolic fruit and such rich theology."

Cardinal Gerhard Müller, former prefect of the then-Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, told OSV News that the late Father Gustavo Gutiérrez's theological work will leave a lasting contribution to the Catholic Church in seeing "signs and the peculiarities of the time" and to view them through "the light of the Gospel" that leads not only to change in pastoral practice but "to change society, the conditions of life and to make it better according to (everyone's) dignity."

In a letter dated Oct. 21 and posted on the Peruvian bishops' conference website, the apostolic nunciature in Peru announced that the decision was made after the pope evaluated allegations revealed during a Vatican investigation last year.
 

Argentine prosecutors issued a request that a formal inquiry be opened into allegations of human trafficking and exploitation made against Opus Dei — accusations the organization has "categorically" denied.

The director of Caritas in Congo was shot and killed by an armed militant group while approaching a roadblock, Caritas Internationalis announced.

"Today we repeat to all those in charge the words of Jesus from today's Gospel: 'Ephphatha,' open your eyes and see the reality, see how children, the elderly, the sick in hospitals, and people living in the countryside are suffering from the smoke of the fires, from the smoke that covers the purest sky in America," Auxiliary Bishop Stanislaw Dowlaszewicz of Santa Cruz de la Sierra said.

Catholics in the Southern Italian city of Enna, Sicily, protested the local church's role in covering up sexual abuse after a court recently ruled that the diocesan bishop sought to protect a priest accused of having abused several minors as a seminarian. Several local news outlets reported that a group of faithful walked out of a Mass Aug. 22 to protest the local church's involvement in covering up abuses committed by Father Giuseppe Rugolo.

The three-judge tribunal — Francesco Paolo Pitarresi, Elisa D'Aveni and Maria Rosaria Santoni — stated that Bishop Rosario Gisana of Piazza Armerina was "well aware for many years of the reports made concerning the abuse suffered by" Antonio Messina, who was 16 at the time.

Pope Francis once again renewed his call for a cease-fire in Gaza following the rescue of four hostages that led to what officials in Gaza said was the killing of more than 270 Palestinians in an Israeli rescue operation that one European Union diplomat deemed a "massacre."
 

"Our partners on-the-ground in Papua New Guinea are currently conducting a rapid needs assessment in the affected villages to determine the most urgent priorities," Caritas Australia stated on its website May 28.

Pope Francis renewed his calls for an immediate cease-fire in the Gaza Strip after seven of the aid workers of World Central Kitchen, a humanitarian organization that delivers food in war-torn countries, were killed in an Israeli missile strike in Gaza Strip April 2.