Richard Williamson, an ultra-traditionalist Catholic bishop whose denial of the Holocaust created a scandal in 2009 when Pope Benedict XVI rehabilitated him and other members of his breakaway society, has died.

It has come as a surprise to many in the Holy See that the Vatican bank fired a newlywed couple, with three young children between them, after a new internal bank regulation went into effect barring workplace marriages.

In their investigation into the Catholic movement Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, Vatican officials uncovered “sadistic” sect-like abuses of power, authority and spirituality.

Pope Francis today named Cardinal Robert McElroy as the archbishop of Washington, tapping one of his most like-minded allies to head the Catholic Church in the U.S. capital at the start of Donald Trump’s second administration.

The White House is expected to announce soon that President Joe Biden will visit the Vatican to meet with Pope Francis next month for what would likely be the final international trip of his presidency.

The Nativity scene generated headlines when it was unveiled Dec. 7 because of the presence of the keffiyeh, the black-and-white checkered headscarf that has become a potent symbol of the Palestinian cause.

Pope Francis has announced he will travel to the French island of Corsica on Dec. 15, visiting France just a week after the scheduled reopening of Notre Dame that he will not be attending.

The freed hostages also said they hoped the incoming Trump administration would work with the outgoing Biden administration to bring the remaining hostages home.

The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors issued findings and recommendations in its pilot annual report, specifically calling for greater transparency from the Vatican’s sex abuse office, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.

The movement was founded in 1971 as a lay community to recruit “soldiers for God,” one of several Catholic societies born as a conservative reaction to the left-leaning liberation theology movement that swept through Latin America