Associated Press

A sweeping, year-long study of sex abuse by Catholic priests and others in Switzerland published Sept. 12 has turned up more than 1,000 cases since the mid-20th century, as the Swiss church becomes the latest in Europe to reckon with the abuse scandal.

In an unprecedented move, the Vatican on Sunday beatified a Polish family of nine — a married couple and their small children — who were executed by the Nazis during World War II for sheltering Jews.

The Vatican has ordered an investigation into high-ranking Catholic clerics in Switzerland in connection with sexual abuse, the Swiss Bishops' Conference said on Sept. 10. The group said in a statement that there were allegations against several active and retired bishops as well as other clergy for their handling of abuse cases.

A state grand jury has charged a now-91-year-old disgraced priest with sexually assaulting a teenage boy in 1975, an extraordinary prosecution that could shed new light on what Roman Catholic Church leaders knew about a child sex abuse crisis that persisted for decades and claimed hundreds of victims.

Researchers have discovered new documentation that substantiates reports that Catholic convents and monasteries in Rome sheltered Jews during World War II, providing names of at least 3,200 Jews whose identities have been corroborated by the city's Jewish community, officials said Sept. 7.

Ukraine’s Greek Catholic bishops told Pope Francis on Sept. 6 that his words praising Russia’s imperial past had pained the Ukrainian people, bringing complaints about the Vatican’s diplomatic neutrality in Moscow's war on their country to the heart of the Holy See.

Society has slipped into a culture of indifference so pervasive that "our necks are going to get stiff" from constantly turning away from the suffering of marginalized people, Pope Francis said.

A judge ruled August 30 that a 93-year-old former Roman Catholic cardinal is not competent to stand trial after both prosecutors and defense attorneys determined he suffers from dementia, and dismissed charges he sexually assaulted a teenage boy in Massachusetts decades ago.

Long before it was confiscated by President Daniel Ortega's government in mid-August, the Jesuit-run University of Central America in Nicaragua was a special place for the thousands whose minds and lives it transformed.

The Vatican on August 29 sought to tamp down an uproar that erupted after Pope Francis praised Russia’s imperialist past during a video conference with Russian Catholic youths, insisting that he never intended to encourage modern-day Russian aggression in Ukraine.

An Australian court on August 25 allowed a civil case to proceed against a Catholic archdiocese involving child sex abuse allegations against late Cardinal George Pell.

A former U.S. bishop cleared by the Vatican of multiple allegations he sexually abused minors and teenagers, after a review board under his diocese in Wyoming found that allegations against him were credible, has died.

Nicaragua’s government on August 23 declared the Jesuit religious order illegal and ordered the confiscation of all its property.

A sheriff said August 22 that authorities have subpoenaed phone records of an Alabama priest and an 18-year-old woman — who fled to Europe together — to see if there is evidence of an illegal relationship when she was a student.

San Francisco’s Roman Catholic archdiocese filed for bankruptcy August 21, saying the filing is necessary to manage more than 500 lawsuits alleging child sexual abuse by church officials.

Retired Albany, N.Y., Bishop Howard Hubbard, who acknowledged covering up allegations of sexual abuse in his upstate New York diocese and recently married a woman in a civil ceremony, has died. 

Nicaragua's government has confiscated a prestigious Jesuit-run university alleging it was a "center of terrorism," the college said Aug. 16 in announcing the latest in a series of actions by authorities against the Catholic Church and opposition figures.

More than 6,000 people representing scores of religions and belief systems are expected to convene in Chicago starting August 14 for what organizers bill as the world’s largest gathering of interfaith leaders.

An 84-year-old retired bishop of Albany, who has been accused of sexual abuse and has unsuccessfully sought to be removed from the priesthood, said August 1 he recently married a woman in a civil ceremony.

Pope Francis will make a two-day trip to Marseille, France, in late September, adding to a flurry of trips the 86-year-old pontiff will soon be making only weeks after leaving hospital following abdominal surgery.