The Associated Press

An independent commission examining sex abuse within the Roman Catholic Church in France believes 3,000 child abusers — two-thirds of them priests — have worked in the church over the past 70 years.

Three Vatican Swiss Guards who have refused to be vaccinated against COVID-19 upon Holy See orders have voluntarily left the storied corps to return to Switzerland, a Swiss Guard official said Oct. 3.

A judge has refused to block Creighton University's requirement that all students get vaccinated against COVID-19 despite the objections of a handful of students who said getting the shots would violate their religious beliefs against abortion.

Mexico celebrated a relatively little-known date Sept. 27 marking 200 years since the victory of the 1810-1821 independence movement. The commemorations included a message from Pope Francis acknowledging the errors of the Roman Catholic Church in supporting the old order.

A high-ranking Roman Catholic cardinal who was placed on a ventilator after contracting COVID-19 said he has moved into a house but is still struggling to recover from the disease.

Catholic bishops in Canada apologized Friday to Indigenous peoples for the suffering endured in residential schools.

Retired Roman Catholic Bishop John McCormack, who faced criticism for his role in Boston's clergy sex abuse scandal and led New Hampshire’s diocese during its own reckoning, has died.

Residents of a Vermont orphanage want the Catholic Church to pay for therapy as they continue to recover from what they described as abuse at the hands of the nuns and priests.

Pope Francis urged European bishops on Sept. 18 to listen to survivors of clergy sexual abuse and consider them partners in reform, warning that their failure to do so risks the very future of the Catholic Church.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on Sept. 16 criticized some in the judiciary for veering into the role of legislators and politicians, saying it is not the role of judges to make policy or to base decisions on their personal feelings or religious beliefs.

Three sex abuse lawsuits filed against a New Jersey diocese and announced Thursday include claims that defrocked Cardinal Theodore McCarrick abused a young man in the 1980s.

Pope Francis has rejected the resignation of the archbishop of Hamburg, who offered to step down in March after a report faulted him for his handling of sexual abuse allegations in his previous diocese.

Poland's top political leaders attended the Sept. 12 beatification of a cardinal who led the Polish Catholic Church's resistance to communism and a blind nun who devoted her life to helping others who couldn't see.

Boston Cardinal Sean O'Malley met with Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel on Sept. 9 and visited a Cuban COVID-19 vaccine laboratory at a time of tense relations between the U.S. and Cuba.

The Catholic diocese of Wuhan, China — where the coronavirus was first detected — has a new bishop who was nominated by the pope according to the Vatican’s controversial accord with China, the Holy See said Wednesday.

Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that it is unconstitutional to punish abortion, unanimously annulling several provisions of a law from Coahuila — a state on the Texas border — that had made abortion a criminal act.

Pope Francis on Sunday asked for prayers for his visit later this month to “the heart of Europe,” a four-day pilgrimage to Hungary and Slovakia, which will be his first travels since surgery earlier this summer.

A gay substitute teacher was wrongfully fired by a Roman Catholic school in North Carolina after he announced in 2014 on social media that he was going to marry his longtime partner, a federal judge has ruled.

Former Roman Catholic Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the once-powerful American prelate who was expelled from the priesthood for sexual abuse, pleaded not guilty Sept. 3 to sexually assaulting a 16-year-old boy during a wedding reception in Massachusetts nearly 50 years ago.

The Vatican has concluded that allegations of sexual abuse dating back a half century against the Roman Catholic bishop of Brooklyn do “not have the semblance of truth," but an attorney for the accusers said they will continue to pursue their civil cases.