The Associated Press

Nearly two decades after the Vatican assumed responsibility for reviewing all cases of abuse, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is today overwhelmed, struggling with a skeleton staff that hasn't grown at pace to meet the four-fold increase in the number of cases arriving in 2019 compared to a decade ago.

In a letter to the president of Christianity Today magazine, more than 100 evangelicals chided the magazine for penning an anti-Trump editorial that they portrayed as a dig at their characters as well as the president's.

Pope Francis warned Dec. 21 that "rigidity" in living out the Christian faith is creating a "minefield" of hatred and misunderstanding in a world where Christianity is increasingly irrelevant.

The Legion of Christ religious order, which was discredited by its pedophile founder and the cult-like practices he imposed, says an internal investigation has identified 33 priests and 71 seminarians who sexually abused minors over the past eight decades.

The April 15 fire at Notre Dame cathedral has stopped the Paris cathedral from celebrating Midnight Mass this year, for the first time in over two centuries.

President Donald Trump is blasting a prominent Christian magazine that published an editorial arguing that he should be removed from office.

A handful of people who have gone public as survivors of Catholic clergy sexual abuse in Japan, where values of conformity and harmony have resulted in a strong code of silence.

Tennessee won't stop resettling refugees, Republican Gov. Bill Lee said December 18, rejecting the option offered to states by President Donald Trump's administration.

The Supreme Court said December 18 it will consider expanding protections for churches against job-discrimination claims.

The Roman Catholic bishop of Erie has announced the opening of the canonization process for Gertrude Barber, founder of what is now called the Barber National Institute for adults and children with disabilities.

Protests spread December 17 across India against a new law that provides a path to citizenship for non-Muslims entering illegally from several neighboring countries, with angry demonstrators clashing with police.

Assailants attacked several protest camps in north and south Lebanon early Dec. 17, according to state-run media, demolishing tents and burning down others as anger boiled over in the capital following a video deemed offensive to the country's Shiites.

The Archdiocese of Oklahoma City said December 16 it has substantiated an allegation of child sexual abuse against another priest.

For decades, the people of Bethlehem have watched tour buses drive up to the Church of the Nativity, disgorge their passengers for a few hours at the traditional birthplace of Jesus, and then return to Israel.

Fifteen states have revised their laws in the past two years extending or suspending statute of limitations to allow child sex abuse claims stretching back decades, unleashing potentially thousands of new lawsuits.

Half of California's Catholic dioceses expect to be subpoenaed by the state attorney general as part of an investigation into whether they have properly handled allegations of sexual abuse by priests, a church spokesman said Dec. 10.

The mayor of Jersey City said Dec. 11 it's clear that the gunmen in a furious shooting that left six people dead targeted a Jewish market.

President Rodrigo Duterte has decided to end more than two years of martial law in the southern Philippines after government forces weakened Islamic militant groups there with the capture and killing of their leaders, his spokesman said Tuesday.

A former New York Giants team chaplain who faced sexual abuse allegations nearly 20 years ago has been sued by one of the accusers.

The church's clergy sex abuse crisis has had a ripple effect on many honorable priests: heavier workloads, increased isolation as multi-priest parishes grow scarce and an erosion of public support.