Catholics, Bishops | featured news

The Catholic bishops are reviewing church sex abuse policies but not speaking publicly on reports questioning their effectiveness.

Luigi Padovese, the apostolic vicar of Anatolia, or the Vatican’s representative to eastern Turkey, was found dead outside his home in the Mediterranean port Iskenderun, officials said.

Pope Benedict XVI was "deeply affected" by a meeting with victims of abuse by Catholic clergy, he said Wednesday, in his first public comments on the scandal in more than a month.

Pope Benedict said the sexual abuse scandal shaking Roman Catholicism showed the Church needed to do penance for its sins, in a rare public reference by the pope to pedophilia in the priesthood.