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Rhode Island church vandalized for 2nd time

Associated Press

John Bellocchio, a survivor of abuse, speaks to reporters during a news conference in Newark, N.J., Monday, Dec. 2, 2019. Lawsuits alleging sexual abuse by Roman Catholic clergy are taking center stage in New Jersey as the state's relaxation of statute of limitations rules takes effect. Bellocchio's lawsuit accuses defrocked former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the former Archbishop of the Newark diocese. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Theodore McCarrick sued in sexual abuse of John Bellocchio as teen in New Jersey

By Christopher Vondracek - The Washington Times

In this Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2019, photo, attorney Adam Slater takes a phone call on a patio outside his high-rise Manhattan office overlooking St. Patrick's Cathedral, in New York. Slater's firm is representing clients accusing the Roman Catholic Church of sexual abuse, a clientele that is rapidly growing after New York state opened its one-year window allowing sex abuse suits with no statute of limitations. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews) ** FILE **

New abuse suits could cost the Catholic Church more than $4B

By Bernard Condon and Jim Mustian - Associated Press

In this Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2019, photo, attorney Adam Slater takes a phone call on a patio outside his high-rise Manhattan office overlooking St. Patrick's Cathedral, in New York. Slater's firm is representing clients accusing the Roman Catholic Church of sexual abuse, a clientele that is rapidly growing after New York state opened its one-year window allowing sex abuse suits with no statute of limitations. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews) ** FILE **

New wave of abuse suits could hit church like never before

By BERNARD CONDON and JIM MUSTIAN - Associated Press

French Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, center, arrives at the Lyon courtroom for his appeal trial Thursday, Nov.28, 2019 in Lyon, central France. The French cardinal's career is on the line as an appeals court decides whether to uphold his conviction for covering up sexual abuse of children. (AP Photo/Laurent Cipriani)

French cardinal’s career at stake in sex abuse case

By NICOLAS VAUX-MONTAGNY - Associated Press

FILE - In this Oct. 27, 2019, file photo, Pope Francis leaves after a Mass for the closing of Amazon Synod in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican. Germany’s Catholics reacted enthusiastically when bishops in the Amazon called for the ordination of married men as priests to address the clergy shortage in that region. But there is resistance elsewhere for the proposal that would overturn centuries of tradition, with the conservative Roman Catholic establishment making sure its voice is heard as Pope Francis prepares his own document on the issue. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino, File)

Global debate gets underway over married Catholic priests

By KIRSTEN GRIESHABER - Associated Press

French bishop Eric de Moulins Beaufort, right, arrives to a press conference in Lourdes, southwestern France, Saturday, Nov. 9, 2019. 120 bishops are convening for their biannual assembly in Lourdes, where they will discuss the plan for a &quot;financial gesture&quot; toward victims of sexual abuse by the clergy. (AP Photo/Bob Edme)

French bishops approve payments for church sex abuse victims

By CLAIRE PARKER - Associated Press

FILE - In this July 7, 2019 file photo, Democratic presidential candidate and former vice president Joe Biden speaks at Morris Brown AME Church in Charleston, S.C. A Catholic priest in South Carolina denied communion to Joe Biden over the weekend, a decision purportedly made over the former vice presidents stance on abortion. It illustrates the tricky challenge facing presidential candidates as they share their faith on the trail: How to balance the private and deeply personal values of their religions with a public campaign schedule that pushes them to authentically choose a side in polarizing moral debates? (AP Photo/Meg Kinnard, File)

Joe Biden Communion snub may have been calculated, political observer suggests

By Seth McLaughlin - The Washington Times

Social Justice Illustration by Greg Groesch/The Washington Times

Caring for fellow human beings is the heart of social justice

By Michael P. Orsi

Gerald Erebon sits with his aunt, Scolastica Apayo, as she holds a phone displaying a photo of the Rev. Mario Lacchin, during an interview at her home in the Isiolo area of the Archers Post settlement in Kenya on Sunday, June 30, 2019. Scolastica said her sister, Sabina Losirkale, finally told her the secret in 2012, two weeks before she died. “Now that my days are over,” her sister told her, she could reveal all: “When Gerald will ask you who’s his father, just tell him: Father Mario.” (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)

‘How will we cover up this shame?’: The priest and the girl

By NICOLE WINFIELD and RODNEY MUHUMUZA - Associated Press

Gerald Erebon looks over livestock at the Archers Post settlement in Kenya on Sunday, June 30, 2019. Erebon has been an outcast all his life: Tall, light-skinned with wavy hair, he looks nothing like the dark-skinned Kenyan man listed as his father on his birth certificate, or his black mother or siblings. He and his family say that’s because his biological father is the Rev. Mario Lacchin, an Italian priest of the Consolata Missionaries order who ministered in Archers Post, Kenya in the 1980s. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)

Church accused of covering up priest’s abuse, and paternity

By NICOLE WINFIELD and RODNEY MUHUMUZA - Associated Press

Pope Francis walks in procession on the occasion of the Amazon synod, at the Vatican, Monday, Oct. 7, 2019. Pope Francis opened a three-week meeting on preserving the rainforest and ministering to its native people as he fended off attacks from conservatives who are opposed to his ecological agenda. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Pope Francis seeks ‘courageous’ debate over Amazon priest shortage

By Nicole Winfield - Associated Press

Pope Francis appointed 13 cardinals at St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican on Saturday that he admires and whose sympathies align with his to become the Catholic Church's newest cardinals. (Associated Press)

Pope Francis gets help putting his stamp on Catholic Church from new cardinals

By Christopher Vondracek - The Washington Times

Pope Francis attends a feast of St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of ecology, at the Vatican, Friday, Oct. 4, 2019. The ceremony takes place two days before a Synod of bishops on the Pan-Amazon region opens at the Vatican to address the ecological, social and spiritual needs of indigenous peoples in the Amazon. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

NZ bishop resigns over ‘unacceptable’ sexual relationship

By NICOLE WINFIELD - Associated Press

Worshippers attend a prayer ceremony known as the &quot;celebration of the word&quot; led by Antelmo Pereira at the Catholic church in Santa Rosa, Brazil, Saturday, Sept. 21, 2019. In remote Amazonian communities that are only accessible by boat, villagers can go for months without sacraments that only priests are allowed to deliver - including Mass and confessions, and the faithful have to depend on missionaries such as Pereira that are only allowed to lead prayer ceremonies. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)

Married priests, saviors of the faith or part of an agenda?

By Manuel Rueda - Associated Press

How AP conducted its investigation into accused priests

By MEGHAN HOYER - Associated Press

This 2017 photo provided by the Deschutes County, Ore., District Attorney's Office shows Roger Sinclair. After Sinclair was removed by the Diocese of Greensburg in Pennsylvania in 2002 for allegedly abusing a teenage boy decades earlier, he ended up in Oregon. In 2017, he was arrested for repeatedly molesting a young developmentally disabled man and is now imprisoned for a crime that the lead investigator in the Oregon case says should have never been allowed to happen. (Deschutes County District Attorney's Office via AP)

Correction: Reckoning-Where Are They Now story

By The Associated Press - Associated Press

'The Irony of Modern Catholic History' (book jacket)

BOOK REVIEW: ‘The Irony of Modern Catholic History’

By Andrea Picciotti-Bayer

Vatican authorizes investigation into Buffalo diocese

By CAROLYN THOMPSON - Associated Press

Pope Francis greets faithful after celebrating Mass on the occasion of the Migrant and Refugee World Day, in St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Sunday, Sept. 29, 2019. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Pope meets with Jesuit targeted by right for gay outreach

By NICOLE WINFIELD - Associated Press