The Associated Press

Pope Francis has granted a "time out" to a German archbishop who offered his resignation after being faulted for his handling of allegations of sexual abuse in his previous diocese, church authorities said Monday.

The Rockville Centre Diocese has sold its headquarters for $5.2 million — money church officials say will be used to pay creditors. The diocese filed for bankruptcy last year amid more than 200 sexual abuse lawsuits.

The ruling was the latest blow to Vatican prosecutors, who have sought international judicial assistance in their probe into the Secretariat of State's investment of donations from the faithful. Vatican prosecutors have faced a series of embarrassing setbacks in foreign courts that have pointed to incompetence, overreach and problems as basic as getting documents translated properly.

The Jesuit priest who presided over an inaugural Mass for President Joe Biden is under investigation for unspecified allegations and is on leave from his position as president of Santa Clara University in Northern California, according to a statement from the college's board of trustees.

A report commissioned by Germany’s Cologne archdiocese on church officials’ handling of past cases of sexual abuse found 75 cases in which high-ranking officials neglected their duties. The findings on Thursday prompted the archbishop of Hamburg to offer his resignation to Pope Francis.

A Belgian bishop has lashed out at the Vatican over its decree that the Catholic Church won't bless same-sex unions since God "cannot bless sin."

Italy's top administrative court has ruled against a conservative think tank affiliated with former White House adviser Steve Bannon over its use of a 13th century hilltop monastery to train future populist leaders.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a formal response Monday to a question about whether Catholic clergy can bless gay unions: "Negative."

The Vatican warned March 12 that it has nearly depleted its financial reserves from past donations to cover budget deficits over recent years, as it urged continued giving from the faithful.

Disha Ravi, a 22-year-old Indian climate activist, recently became a household name in India, dominating headlines after police charged her with sedition, a colonial-era law that carries a sentence up to life in prison.

Sri Lankan Roman Catholics attended Mass dressed in black on Mar. 7, with prayers and protests calling for justice for those killed in coordinated suicide bomb attacks on Easter Sunday in 2019.

For more than a century, Catholic social teaching has advocated not for a minimum wage but for a living wage for workers. Sadly, however, the U.S. Congress cannot even increase the minimum wage because of parliamentary rules and Republican opposition.

Leaders at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops are discouraging Catholics from using the new Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine if given a choice, citing the use of cells with a distant link to abortion in the development of the vaccine.

Olga Segura has often been asked why she’s chosen to remain involved in the Catholic Church, an institution that, in her eyes, has often ignored the trauma of Black people. As a journalist who’s built her career in Catholic media, has asked herself that same question: Why did she attach her identity to such an institution?

The Biden administration is pulling back an environmental review that had cleared the way for a parcel of federal land held sacred by Apaches to be turned over for a massive copper mine in eastern Arizona.

Sri Lankan Roman Catholic Church officials declared a "Black Sunday" this weekend to demand justice for the victims of 2019 Easter Sunday bomb attacks that killed more than 260 people. 

The history of Black Christianity in America came to television screens this month in a documentary series based on a new book, The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song, by Henry Louis "Skip" Gates Jr., a Harvard University historian. An interview with Stacey Holman, who produced and directed the series.

The head of the German Bishops' Conference said Feb. 25 that the country's Roman Catholic church is suffering from a "scandalous image" amid mounting anger over the Cologne archbishop's handling of a report on past sexual abuse by clergy, but he defended its overall record in addressing the issue.

A defrocked American priest went on trial Tuesday to face charges he sexually abused young girls at his shelter for orphans and children from impoverished families, in the first clergy sex case to emerge in East Timor — the most Catholic place in the world outside the Vatican.