Nicole Winfield

Vatican officials on Monday defended the last-minute rollout of Pope Francis' reform of the Holy See bureaucracy while also painting it as one of the most consequential moves of his pontificate.

A cardinal testified that he donated 125,000 euros ($140,000) of Vatican money to a Sardinian diocese for purely charitable reasons, rejecting Vatican prosecutors' claims that the money benefitted his brother who ran the charity.

Cardinal George Pell has called for the Vatican's doctrine office to intervene and reprimand two leading European Catholic churchmen who called for changes in Catholic teaching on sexuality and homosexuality.

Pope Francis has yet to publicly condemn Russia by name for its invasion of Ukraine or publicly appeal to the head of the Russian Orthodox Church. Some are not satisfied with the Vatican tradition of quiet diplomacy.

The Vatican's criminal tribunal on Tuesday resoundingly rejected defense motions to dismiss a landmark financial fraud case and ruled the trial will go ahead with the questioning of a cardinal scheduled for later this month.

A Connecticut newspaper exposed one of the Catholic Church's biggest sexual abuse scandals by reporting 25 years ago.

Defense lawyers in the Vatican's fraud and extortion trial on Feb. 18 accused Pope Francis of violating their clients' human rights by issuing four secret, executive decrees that gave prosecutors free reign to investigate in ways that deprived the suspects of basic legal guarantees.

The Vatican's big fraud and extortion trial resumes Friday after exposing some unseemly realities of how the Holy See operates with a new spy story taking center stage.

A consortium of groups said they hoped recent national inquiries in Germany and France, and planned ones in Spain and Portugal, would pressure the Italian Catholic Church to open its archives to independent investigators to ascertain the scope of the problem.

An Italian appeals court has definitively annulled the arrest warrant for the prime suspect in the Vatican's big fraud and embezzlement trial. 

The Vatican strongly defended Pope Benedict XVI's record in fighting clergy sexual abuse and cautioned against looking for "easy scapegoats and summary judgments".

A cardinal indicted in the Vatican's big fraud and embezzlement trial has issued a formal protest to the court claiming the pope's prosecutors had offended his dignity by suggesting he was having sex with a co-defendant.

Pope Francis vowed to provide justice to victims of clergy sexual abuse.

The Vatican has included a group that advocates for women's ordination on a website promoting a two-year consultation of rank-and-file Catholics.

A top leader of the Knights of Malta warned the group's members on Wednesday that the Holy See's latest proposals to reform the order threaten its internationally recognized status as a sovereign state

Italy’s supreme court has faulted prosecutors for withholding evidence benefiting the key suspect in the Vatican’s fraud and embezzlement trial in a parallel case in the Italian courts.

Pope Francis has long lamented that he can't walk around town unnoticed like he used to before becoming pope. But he seems to have nevertheless kept his sense of humor after he was caught on camera making an unannounced visit to a Rome record shop this week.

Clergy abuse victims asked the European Court of Human Rights to make a definitive ruling on whether the Holy See can continue to avoid being held liable for sexual abuse committed by Catholic priests by claiming state immunity.

A Swiss federal court has upheld a freeze on a reported 50 million euros in assets belonging to one of the suspects in a big Holy See fraud trial.

Plans are progressing for a possible meeting next year between Pope Francis and the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church.