The surprising news in November that the Vatican had asked U.S. bishops not to vote on several proposals for responding to the sexual abuse crisis was motivated by a lack of time given the Vatican to study the proposals and potential conflicts with church law, according to a letter obtained by the Associated Press.Read More

Families are "a treasure," Pope Francis said. "They must be safeguarded always, defended."Read More

James Grein, a Virginia man who said Archbishop Theodore E. McCarrick, former archbishop of Washington, sexually abused him for years beginning when he was 11, gave his testimony about what occurred Dec. 27 before a judicial vicar for the New York Archdiocese.Read More

WASHINGTON — Sister Wendy Beckett, who gained fame in the 1990s for television shows and books explaining art, died Dec. 26 in Norfolk, England, at the age of 88. She has been widely described as both an unlikely art critic and television star, but that may have been what made her all the more likeable....Read More

Immigration officials announced new health checks for immigrant children under detention after a second child, an 8-year-old boy, died Christmas Eve while under the agency's care.Read More

Delivering his formal Christmas message and blessing, Pope Francis prayed for a world where all people would recognize that they are brothers and sisters and would work for justice and for peace.Read More

Acknowledging the gravity of the clerical sexual abuse crisis, Pope Francis told members of the Roman Curia that the church's strength does not depend on its members' perfection, but on the willingness to recognize its failings and correct them.Read More

Exactly 200 years ago this Christmas Eve -- Dec. 24, 1818 -- in a little church in what is now Austria, the world heard for the first time a poem set to music that eventually would be hailed as one of the most popular and beloved Christmas carols of all time.Read More