Rhina Guidos

In an Aug. 16 interview, Erie Bishop Lawrence Persico said the only way to regain the trust of the laity after decades-long claims of sexual abuse by priests and others at six Pennsylvania dioceses is by deeds and one of those deeds may mean getting rid of bishops who hid abusers.

Some victims of clergy sex abuse and their supporters are calling on federal and state entities to investigate sex abuse within the Catholic Church and root out abusers and anyone who has protected them.

In a tweet, a U.S. bishop said he had spent the night reading a grand jury report detailing seven decades of child sex abuse claims in six Pennsylvania dioceses and "it was like reading a horror book."

In a June 2015 letter to Boston's Cardinal Sean O'Malley obtained by Catholic News Service, a New York priest tells the prelate about allegations he had heard concerning then-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and asks that if the matter doesn't fall under his purview, to forward it to the Vatican.

The Diocese of Greensburg unveiled Aug. 9 a document about safeguards and procedures in place to protect children, as the state of Pennsylvania gets ready to release a grand jury report about past claims of sexual abuse of children involving hundreds of priests and other church workers at six of the state's eight dioceses. 

A last-minute round of legal maneuvering to keep some names from appearing in a grand jury report detailing a months-long investigation of clergy sex abuse claims in six Pennsylvania dioceses may have kept the document from being made public Aug. 8 -- the earliest date given for its possible release.

A judge has postponed a mid-August trial for a priest accused of embezzling more than $5 million from a parish in Okemos, in central Michigan, part of the Diocese of Lansing.

A priest in Michigan is awaiting an August trial after being accused of embezzling more than $5 million from a parish in Okemos, in central Michigan, in the Diocese of Lansing.

Some of migrant children under age 5 separated from their families by the government were reunited with loved ones July 9 with help from Catholic organizations.

In less than 48 hours, a group of Catholic bishops saw the faces of triumph and relief from migrants who had been recently released by immigration authorities, but ended their two-day journey to the border with a more "somber" experience, visiting detained migrant children living temporarily within the walls of a converted Walmart.

The visit to a respite center run by Catholic Charities in downtown McAllen, Texas, quickly took the a delegation of U.S. bishops into the heart of the human drama of migration and its human toll.

Led by the president of the bishops' conference, a delegation of prelates from around the country physically stepped into the ground zero of the immigration debate when they arrived near the southern border.

Bipartisan disagreement on how to fix the country's immigration system led to failure once again as lawmakers on Capitol Hill turned down one immigration bill June 21 and postponed a vote on a second proposal, which also has a slim opportunity of passing.

The country's Catholic bishops have joined a chorus of organizations, institutions and high-profile individuals urging the Trump administration to stop separating children from their parents.

The bishop of Toledo said of a recent immigration raid that "no matter our political persuasion, when families are broken apart, as in this raid, we should all recognize that the common good is not served."

The U.S. Supreme Court June 4 threw out a lower court's ruling that allowed a 17-year-old last year to obtain an abortion while she was in a detention center after an illegal border crossing.

The official tally of 64 deaths on the island of Puerto Rico attributed to 2017's powerful Hurricane Maria has been disputed for some time, but in late May, a study in a respected scientific journal said that figure may have underestimated the island's fatalities by the thousands.

A group of Hondurans pleaded with U.S. lawmakers May 17 to stop military aid to the nation and to allow the country's citizens living under a particular immigration status in the U.S. to remain here until conditions improve in their native country.

Newark Cardinal Joseph Tobin said he worries that reducing the number of immigrants, particularly refugees to the U.S., and demonizing them represents a "hardening of the American heart," and that should be of concern to a country that has been historically a welcoming place.

Invoking a Salvadoran who's about to become the country's first Catholic saint, the man who now occupies his old post asked immigrants and their children during an April 11 Mass in Washington to pray for Blessed Oscar Romero's intercession, a "miracle," that would allow U.S. lawmakers to grant immigration relief to thousands of Salvadorans and other immigrants to the United States.