The number of allegations of sexual abuse by clergy declined in 2013, while diocesan spending on child protection programs increased under the U.S. Catholic Church’s “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People,” according to a church-sponsored annual audit. Dioceses an

Frans van der Lugt, a 75-year-old Dutch Jesuit who refused to leave war-torn Syria, was beaten by armed men and killed with two bullets to the head, according to a message sent from the Jesuits’ Middle East Province to the Jesuit headquarters in Rome on April 7. • Linda LeMura, named pres

The number of Syrian refugees in Lebanon passed the one million mark on April 3.

One man stepped into his new role promising change but has struggled to deliver it; the other, considered a “safe” choice by the men who elected him, turned out to be an effortless instigator of change from the moment he stepped onto a Vatican balcony, greeting the world with a humble re

Oral arguments in two cases before the U.S. Supreme Court on March 25 focused on whether for-profit corporations have religious grounds to object to the new health care law’s requirement that most employers provide contraceptive coverage in their employee health plans. Oral arguments lasted fo

The clerical abuse survivor nominated by Pope Francis to sit on the new Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors said the commission needs to achieve concrete change in order to “show other survivors that the church is going to get it right.” Marie Collins, who as a 13-year-old