Associated Press

A senior Portuguese Catholic Church official who has been named in investigations involving alleged cover-ups of sex abuse by priests said Oct. 12 his conscience is clear.

France's Catholic Church has paid financial compensation to 23 victims of child sexual abuse by priests or other church representatives under a recently launched reparation process, the body in charge of compensation decisions said Sept. 30.

A 90-year-old Catholic cardinal and five others stood trial in Hong Kong on Sept. 26 for allegedly failing to register a now-defunct fund set up to assist people arrested in the mass anti-government protests in the city three years ago.

Maine is ready to fund tuition for some religious school students for the first time since a Supreme Court ruling in June ordered the state to treat those schools the same as other private schools regarding tuition reimbursement.

On September 4, Pope Francis will beatify John Paul I, the last formal step before possible sainthood.

An assistant principal at a public elementary school in Connecticut is facing an investigation by state education officials after apparently being secretly recorded saying he'd prefer not to hire politically conservative staff, including Roman Catholics.

Religious freedom rights protect the Indianapolis Archdiocese from being sued by a teacher who was fired from his job at a Catholic high school for being in a same-sex marriage, according to an Aug. 31 ruling from the Indiana Supreme Court.

Parents of children enrolled in Maine religious schools fought for years — all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court — for the state to treat tuition reimbursements the same as other private schools, but only one of the religious high schools that stood to benefit has signed up to participate this fall.

The Lower Jordan River's decline, exacerbated by climate change, is intertwined with the entanglements of the decades-old Arab-Israeli conflict and rivalry over precious water in a valley where so much is contested.

Pope Francis voiced worry on August 21 about the situation in Nicaragua, where police detained several Roman Catholic clergy, including a bishop, critical of President Daniel Ortega’s administration.

Pope Francis has taken another step to rehabilitate Cardinal Angelo Becciu, inviting the once-powerful Vatican prelate to participate in an upcoming meeting of cardinals two years after Francis forced his resignation based on purported financial improprieties.

Pope Francis has met with a fourth group of transgender people who found shelter at a Rome church, the Vatican newspaper reported on Aug. 11.

A Vatican cardinal marked the 80th anniversary on Aug. 9 of the gas chamber killing of the Jewish-born Catholic convert Edith Stein by celebrating a Mass near the former Auschwitz death camp and telling the story of his own family's Jewish origins and their fate under the Nazis.

The Archbishop of Lisbon met Aug. 5 with Pope Francis in a private audience at the Vatican to discuss "events in recent weeks that have marked the life of the Church in Portugal," the Portuguese church said.

Pope Francis has promoted a Vatican nurse whom he credited with saving his life to be his “personal health care assistant.”

Kansas voters on Aug. 2 sent a resounding message about their desire to protect abortion rights, rejecting a ballot measure in a conservative state with deep ties to the anti-abortion movement that would have allowed the Republican-controlled Legislature to tighten restrictions or ban the procedure outright.

A former parishioner at a Massachusetts church has filed a lawsuit alleging he was sexually abused as a child more than 30 years ago by a Roman Catholic priest who is now an auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of Detroit.

The Roman Catholic archbishop of San Salvador said July 31 that most people support a months-long state of emergency that has rounded of tens of thousands of suspects in a crackdown on violent street gangs.

It was a stunning image: Pope Francis briefly wearing a full Indigenous headdress, its rows of soft white feathers fastened in place by a colorful, beaded headband after he apologized for the Catholic Church's role in Canada's "disastrous" residential school system for Indigenous children.

Pope Francis on July 17 asked for prayers to accompany him on what he called his "penitential" pilgrimage to Canada to apologize to Indigenous groups for abuses inflicted by the Catholic church.