Roman Catholic | featured news

Pope Benedict XVI will keep the name Benedict XVI and become the Roman pontiff emeritus or pope emeritus, the Vatican announced on Tuesday, putting an end to days of speculation on how the pope will be addressed once he ceases to be the leader of the world’s 1.1 billion Roman Catholics on Thursday.

Roman Catholic bishops said the latest plan from the Obama administration did not provide safeguards for hospitals, colleges and charities that objected to coverage.

At a pivotal national meeting, members of the largest group for American nuns have been weighing whether they should accept or challenge a Vatican order to reform. The national assembly is the first since a Vatican review concluded the Roman Catholic sisters had tolerated dissent about the all-male priesthood, birth control and homosexuality, while remaining nearly silent in the fight against abortion. Officials at the Holy See want a full-scale overhaul of the organization under the authority of U.S. bishops.

Clergy sex abuse victims upset that no high-ranking Roman Catholic leaders have been prosecuted for sheltering guilty priests are asking the International Criminal Court to investigate the pope and top Vatican cardinals for possible crimes against humanity.

A former Roman Catholic bishop in Nova Scotia has pleaded guilty to trying to import child pornography after he was arrested in 2009 returning from a trip to Thailand.

Two Roman Catholic school workers from New Jersey have pleaded not guilty to charges of having sex with female students during a high school's class trip to Germany.

A Roman Catholic priest in California has admitted to a sexual and romantic relationship with a county schools official who is also his second cousin.

Carl Sutphin was a problem priest who left ministry in the Roman Catholic church just before being charged nearly a decade ago with 14 counts of molestation for sexually abusing six children....

Belgian media says the country's ultraconservative Roman Catholic archbishop was hit by a pie in the face during an All Saints Day service.

Attorneys for nearly 150 people who claim sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests made nearly 10,000 pages of previously sealed internal church documents public Sunday, revealing at least one previously unknown decades-old case in which a priest under police investigation was allowed to leave the U.S. after the Diocese of San Diego intervened.