Nicole Winfield

The Knights of Columbus, the world’s largest Catholic fraternal group, has covered up defining features of the mosaics in its Washington D.C. shrine after the famous ex-Jesuit artist who designed them was accused of abusing women.

It took the Holy See more than a half-century to sanction Maciel, and even more for it to acknowledge he was a religious fraud and con artist who molested his seminarians, fathered three children and built a secretive, cult-like religious order to hide his double life.

A legendary French priest and a lifelong advocate of the homeless has been accused of committing acts that would amount to “sexual assault or sexual harassment,” his foundation said Wednesday, in the latest instance of a Catholic spiritual leader facing allegations of abusing his power to harm women.

The Vatican’s chief prosecutor has strongly defended the integrity and fairness of the city state’s justice system following criticism that Pope Francis' absolute power and his interventions in the so-called “trial of the century” last year violated the defendants’ fundamental rights.

Pope Francis’ chief of staff became one of the highest-ranking Holy See officials to testify in a foreign court Thursday, telling a British tribunal about the negotiations at the heart of the Vatican’s so-called “trial of the century,” admitting he filed a false invoice and pointing a finger at his one-time deputy who escaped the scandal unscathed.

A French bishop has put off any decision on whether to remove mosaics by an ex-Jesuit artist accused of abusing women, saying that they’ll stay for now on the Lourdes shrine but that eventually they should be removed.

The Vatican went on trial in a London court Wednesday, as a British financier sought to recover from the harm he said he suffered to his reputation as a result of a Vatican investigation into its 350 million euro (around $375 million) investment in a London property.

A lawyer for Raffaele Mincione, a London-based financier, submitted a complaint last week to the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights via a special procedure that allows individuals or groups to provide the U.N. with information about alleged rights violations in countries or institutions.

Pope Francis apologized Tuesday after he was quoted using a vulgar and derogatory term about gay men to reaffirm the Catholic Church's ban on gay priests. Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni issued a statement acknowledging the media storm that erupted about Francis' comments, which were delivered behind closed doors to Italian bishops on May 20.

A retired Canadian judge said Tuesday he couldn’t find any reliable evidence of sexual misconduct by the archbishop of Quebec, after the purported victim refused to cooperate with his investigation and the cardinal strongly denied the claim.

The Vatican made another big overture to China on Tuesday, reaffirming the Catholic Church poses no threat to Beijing's sovereignty and admitting that Western missionaries had made “errors” in past centuries in their zeal to convert the Chinese faithful.

In an official edict May 9, Pope Francis described his vision for the 2025 Jubilee as a year of hope. He asked for gestures of solidarity for the poor, prisoners, migrants and Mother Nature.

Forty-nine employees of the Vatican Museums have filed a class-action complaint with the Vatican administration demanding better seniority, leave and overtime benefits in an unusual, public challenge to Pope Francis' governance.

Even for a place that prides itself on its culture of unusual encounters, Pope Francis' visit Sunday stood out.

Pope Francis met Wednesday with a leader of Brazil's Yanomami people, who asked for papal backing for President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva 's efforts to reverse decades of exploitation of the Amazon and better protect its Indigenous peoples.

A Peruvian archbishop who sued two journalists over their reports about sexual abuse and alleged financial corruption in his religious movement, Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, has resigned amid a Vatican investigation.

The Vatican will publish a document next week on gender theory and surrogacy that was announced in a bid to respond to opposition from conservatives over Pope Francis' willingness to bless same-sex unions.

Pope Francis urged his priests Thursday to avoid “clerical hypocrisy” and treat their flocks with mercy as he delivered a lengthy set of marching orders to Rome-based priests at the start of a busy few days leading to Easter.

Pope Francis decided at the last minute to skip his homily during Palm Sunday Mass in St. Peter’s Square, avoiding a strenuous speech at the start of a busy Holy Week that will test his increasingly frail health.

Pope Francis on Thursday defrocked a notorious Belgian bishop who admitted 14 years ago that he sexually abused his nephew but faced no Vatican punishment.