The Associated Press

Polish lawmakers on April 16 postponed a final decision on controversial proposals to impose a near-total ban on abortion and criminalize school sex education in the predominantly Catholic country, in a move that could lead to the draft laws being mothballed.

Leading Republicans say the coronavirus shutdown cannot go on. Car-honking activists swarmed a statehouse April 15 to protest stay-home restrictions. Capitol Hill staff are quietly drafting bills to undo the just-passed rescue aid and push Americans back to work.

Two lawsuits have been filed against the Catholic Diocese of Charlotte claiming two boys were sexually abused in separate instances by the two priests they sought out for help with personal problems decades ago.

While most leaders of major religions have supported governments' efforts to fight the pandemic by limiting gatherings, a minority of the faithful — in both religious and secular institutions — have not.

Polish lawmakers began debating draft laws April 15 that would impose a near-total ban on abortion, criminalize sex education in schools and equate homosexuality with pedophilia, revisiting proposals backed by a Catholic group that were shelved after a popular outcry.

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.

Cardinal George Pell has linked his fight against corruption in the Vatican with his prosecution in Australia for alleged child sex abuse.

Storms that killed more than 30 people in the Southeast, piling fresh misery atop a pandemic, spread across the eastern United States on April 13, leaving more than 1 million homes and businesses without power amid floods and mudslides.

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.

Christians are commemorating Jesus' crucifixion without the solemn church services or emotional processions of past years, marking Good Friday in a world locked down by the coronavirus pandemic.

The virus outbreak has put much of American life on hold, but the nation's culture wars seem immune from the pandemic.

Gov. Laura Kelly's executive order restricting the size of religious gatherings amid the coronavirus outbreak was overturned April 8 after the state's top prosecutor said it likely violates the state constitution.

A staggering 16.8 million Americans have been thrown onto the unemployment rolls in just three weeks, underscoring the terrifying speed with which the coronavirus outbreak has brought world economies to their knees.

Across the Middle East and parts of South Asia, bereaved families have faced traumatic restrictions on burying their dead amid the pandemic. Religion and customs that require speedy burials in the largely Muslim region have clashed with fears of COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus, and government-mandated lockdowns.

Australia's highest court has dismissed the convictions of Cardinal George Pell, the most senior Catholic found guilty of child sex abuse. 

President Donald Trump's reelection campaign is ramping up its courtship of Catholic voters ahead of a likely November matchup against a devout Catholic Democrat, former Vice President Joe Biden.

Australia's highest court will deliver its ruling next week on whether to overturn the convictions of Cardinal George Pell, the most senior Catholic convicted of child sex abuse.

Prisoners in southern Iran broke cameras and caused other damage during a riot, state media reported March 30, the latest in a series of violent prison disturbances in the country, which is battling the most severe coronavirus outbreak in the Middle East.

Florida officials have arrested the pastor of a megachurch after detectives say he held two Sunday services with hundreds of people and violated a safer-at-home order in place to limit the spread of the coronavirus.

The number of coronavirus infections closed in on a half-million worldwide March 26, with both Italy and the U.S. on track to surpass China, and a record-shattering 3.3 million Americans applied for unemployment benefits in a single week in a stark demonstration of the damage to the world's biggest economy.