Victims of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy demanded on Wednesday to meet Pope Francis to press their call for the Church to apply a zero-tolerance policy including the dismissal of bishops who covered up such offences.
Pope Francis has admitted that clerics have sexually abused nuns, and in one case they were kept as sex slaves. He said in that case his predecessor, Pope Benedict, was forced to shut down an entire congregation of nuns who were being abused by priests.
A murdered Salvadoran archbishop associated with social justice and progressive theology was canonized over the weekend. The martyred Oscar Romero, former archbishop of San Salvador, was made a saint on Sunday morning, alongside six other canonized church figures, including Pope Paul VI.
Pope Francis on Tuesday defended a landmark deal between the Vatican and China on the appointment of bishops, saying he, and not the Beijing government, will have the final say on who is named. In his first public comments on the deal signed in Beijing on Saturday, he told reporters on the plane returning from a trip to the Baltics that while he realizes not everyone will understand the logic behind the agreement, he was confident in the “great faith” of Chinese Catholics.
More than 3,600 children in Germany were assaulted by Roman Catholic priests between 1946 and 2014, a leaked report has revealed. The study was commissioned by the Church itself, and was due to be published on 25 September. According to the report some 1.760 clergymen in Germany committed some form of sex attack on 3.677 minors, the German outlet Spiegel Online reported.
Pope Francis has no intention of stepping down as he fights accusations that he protected a former archbishop accused of sexual abuse, Italian news agency ANSA reported, citing “close associates” of the pope.
Pope Francis has begged forgiveness for members of the Catholic Church's hierarchy who kept quiet about clerical child sex abuse. He was ending a two-day visit to the Republic of Ireland by celebrating a Mass at Dublin's Phoenix Park.
The Vatican's retired ambassador to the United States accused senior Vatican officials of knowing as early as 2000 that the disgraced former archbishop of Washington, ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, regularly invited seminarians into his bed but was made a cardinal regardless.
Pope Francis vowed on Saturday to end the “repugnant” sexual exploitation of children by Catholic clergy as he made a highly-charged visit to once devout Ireland where years of reported abuse have driven many Irish away from the Church.
Argentines gathered in Buenos Aires last Saturday to oppose the influence of religion on Argentine politics and encourage people to quit the Catholic Church, in the wake of the recent Senate vote not to legalize some abortions.