Bishops | featured news

The Vatican says Pope Benedict XVI has accepted the resignation of a leading German bishop who is being probed for allegedly physically abusing minors and financial misconduct.

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 XVI today promised a group of sexual abuse victims in Malta that he will make sure their abusers are brought "to justice," the Vatican announced.

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.

The Vatican for the first time released guidelines that explicitly say that bishops and other high-ranking clerics should report cases of abuse to police if required by law.

Episcopal churches in California and Minnesota moved toward appointing gay bishops over the weekend, less than a month after the denomination lifted a self-imposed freeze on promoting openly gay clergy into the top ranks of the church.