Associated Press

A meeting between Germany's Catholic bishops and lay representatives agreed Friday to call for the church to approve blessings of same-sex unions.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego said Feb. 10 it may declare bankruptcy in the coming months as it faces "staggering" legal costs in dealing with some 400 lawsuits alleging priests and others sexually abused children.

The Church of England’s national assembly on Feb. 9 voted to let priests bless same-sex marriages and civil partnerships, while continuing to ban church weddings for the same couples.

Retired Pope Benedict XVI's second secretary came out with a new memoir on Feb. 9, a light, photo-filled daily journal that sharply contrasts with the bombshell tell-all book published last month by the late German pope's main assistant.

A Nigerian priest was burned alive in his home in the country's north on Jan. 15, police said.

Pope Francis will deliver a final send-off for Cardinal George Pell during a funeral Mass on Jan. 14, the Vatican said, as revelations emerge of the Australian prelate's growing concern about what he considered the "disaster" and "catastrophe" of the papacy under Francis.

A federal bankruptcy judge on Thursday approved a $121 million reorganization plan for one of the oldest Roman Catholic dioceses in the U.S. as it tries to stem financial losses from clergy abuse claims that date back decades.

The Vatican has detailed rituals and procedures to follow when a pope dies, but it has not published such rules for a pope emeritus. As a result, official word on December 28 that the health of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI had worsened prompted questions about what happens if and when he dies.

Twenty years after city prosecutors convened a grand jury to investigate the handling of priest-abuse complaints within the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia, the tortuous legal case came to an end with a cleric's misdemeanor no contest plea in a near-empty City Hall courtroom.

Opposition lawmakers in Italy are seeking a parliamentary commission of inquiry into three cold cases that have consumed the Italian public's imagination for decades, including the 1983 disappearance of a 15-year-old that was highlighted in the Netflix documentary, “Vatican Girl.”

President Joe Biden on Dec. 19 expressed alarm about growing antisemitism in the United States and around the globe and vowed to fight back against the scourge.

A Vatican-appointed investigator who helped bring to light decades-old allegations of sexual and spiritual abuse against a famous Jesuit priest is calling for the hierarchs who hid his crimes to “humbly ask the world to forgive the scandal.”

Pope Francis' Jesuit order on Dec. 18 asked any more victims to come forward with complaints against a famous Jesuit artist who was essentially let off the hook by the Vatican twice despite devastating testimony by women who said he sexually and spiritually abused them.

Pope Francis has decided to send back to Greece the three fragments of Parthenon Sculptures that the Vatican Museums have held for centuries, the Vatican announced Dec. 16.

Revelations that the Vatican let a famous priest off the hook twice for abusing his authority over adult women has exposed two main weaknesses in the Holy See's abuse policies: sexual and spiritual misconduct against adult women is rarely if ever punished, and secrecy still reigns supreme, especially when powerful priests are involved.

The head of Pope Francis’ Jesuit religious order Dec. 14 that a famous Jesuit priest had been convicted of one of the most serious crimes in the Catholic Church some two years before the Vatican decided to shelve another case against him for allegedly abusing other adult women under his spiritual care.

It is one of the world's most visited and beloved religious venues – the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, with a circular, tent-shaped roof visible from miles away and a sacred history that each year draws millions of pilgrims from near and far to its hilltop site in Mexico City.

A prominent Roman Catholic priest known for his activism has been reinstated as leader of his Chicago parish after being cleared by church officials of allegations that he sexually abused a minor decades ago.

An unprecedented crisis of confidence is shaking a historic center of Catholicism in Germany — the Archdiocese of Cologne. Catholic believers have protested their deeply divisive archbishop and are leaving in droves over allegations that he may have covered up clergy sexual abuse reports.

One of the Vatican's leading Jesuit advisers on preventing clergy sexual abuse called Dec. 7 for church authorities to shed more light on the case of a famous Jesuit artist who wasn't sanctioned by the Holy See after he was accused of spiritually abusing women during confession.