Nicole Winfield

The Vatican criminal tribunal agreed Oct. 27 to broaden a sex abuse trial involving the Holy See's youth seminary beyond two priests already charged to include the religious organization responsible for running the residence.

A day after donning a face mask for the first time during a liturgical service, Pope Francis was back to his mask-less old ways Oct. 21 despite surging coronavirus infections across Europe and growing criticism of his behavior and the example he is setting.

The Vatican's swirling corruption investigation has taken a mysterious new twist with the arrest on an international warrant of a Sardinian woman said to be close to one of the Holy See's most powerful cardinals before his downfall.

For the first time, a clergy sex abuse trial opened Oct. 14 in the Vatican's criminal tribunal, with one priest accused of molesting an altar boy in the Vatican's youth seminary and another priest accused of covering it up.

Four Swiss Guards have tested positive for coronavirus and were showing symptoms, the Vatican said Monday, Oct. 12, as the surge in infections in surrounding Italy penetrates the Vatican walls.

An Australian man who accused Cardinal George Pell of sexually abusing him denied Monday he was bribed for his testimony, shooting down the latest conspiracy theory to roil the Vatican amid a corruption investigation into its shady finances.

Cardinal George Pell, the former Vatican finance czar who left in 2017 to face child sexual abuse charges in his native Australia, returned to Rome on Sept. 30 after his acquittal to find a Vatican mired in a corruption scandal. 

Pope Francis continued cleaning house in Poland on Aug. 13 following revelations of clergy sexual abuse and cover-up, replacing the powerful archbishop of Gdansk on his 75th birthday.

The Vatican says Pope Francis has been informed about an appeal launched by a group of Catholics in Poland urging intervention into cases where bishops have continued to cover up for priests who sexually molest children.

Pope Francis has ordered a Polish bishop to leave his central diocese and let someone else run it while he is under investigation for covering up cases of sexual abuse that were featured in a second clergy abuse documentary that has rocked Poland's Catholic Church.

Pope Francis welcomed doctors and nurses from the coronavirus-ravaged region of Lombardy to the Vatican on June 20 to thank them for their selfless work and "heroic" sacrifice.

An Argentine bishop close to Pope Francis has gone back to work at the Holy See's financial administration office while under investigation in his native Argentina and at the Vatican for alleged sexual abuse.

A petition signed by some conservative Catholics claiming the coronavirus is an overhyped "pretext" to deprive the faithful of Mass and impose a new world order has run into a bit of a hitch. The highest-ranking signatory, Cardinal Robert Sarah, head of the Vatican's liturgy office, claims he never signed the petition.

The Vatican on April 15 replaced the director of its financial watchdog agency, completing a coup that began in October with controversial police raids on the watchdog offices and an investigation into a London real estate deal.

Christians around the world celebrated Easter Sunday isolated in their homes by the coronavirus while pastors preached the faith's joyous news of Christ's resurrection to empty pews.

The Vatican is under pressure to let more employees work from home as its offices remain open two weeks after the Italian government ordered Italians home and shut down all non-essential businesses in an urgent attempt to contain the coronavirus.

Italy mulled imposing even tighter restrictions on daily life and announced billions in financial relief March 11 to cushion economic shocks from the coronavirus, its latest efforts to adjust to the fast-evolving health crisis that also silenced the usually bustling heart of the Catholic faith, St. Peter’s Square.

Pope Francis on March 6 accepted the resignation of a French cardinal who was convicted and then acquitted of covering up for a pedophile priest in a case that fueled a reckoning over clergy sexual abuse in France.

The Vatican confirmed the walled city-state's first case of the new coronavirus March 6 and closed some offices as a precaution while Pope Francis continued recovering from a cold.

The Vatican is sending its top two sex crimes investigators to Mexico on a fact-finding and assistance mission as the Catholic hierarchy in the world's second-largest Catholic country begins to reckon with decades of clergy sex abuse and cover-up.