International News

VATICAN – The Catholic Church must respect the law and accept court decisions regarding clerical sexual abuse and its cover-up, said Jesuit Father Hans Zollner, a leading expert in child protection.

OTTAWA – When Sr. Laura Girotto first set foot in Adwa, Ethiopia, in late 1993, it was hard to envision the miracle about to  unfold.

VATICAN – Belgian Cardinal Godfried Danneels, retired archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels, died March 14 at the age of 85.

VATICAN – In a letter commemorating the sixth anniversary of Pope Francis' election, the bishops of Argentina said they will ask the Pope to visit his homeland.

WARSAW, Poland – The Vatican secretary of state praised the Polish church's traditional closeness to Rome as key to its survival under hostile regimes, in a speech marking the centenary of the nation's conference of bishops and diplomatic ties with the Vatican.

NEW DELHI – A Catholic bishop was hospitalized after a group of parishioners attacked him, a security guard and a priest in a five-decade-old land dispute in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

SYDNEY – A man Cardinal George Pell was convicted of sexually assaulting said he is finding it hard to "take comfort" in the cardinal's six-year jail sentence because a request to appeal the conviction is due to be heard June 5.

MELBOURNE, Australia – Cardinal George Pell, 77, was sentenced to six years in prison March 13, just over two weeks after a Melbourne court allowed the publication of news that he had been found guilty of sexually abusing two boys.

THRISSUR, India – For the nearly 2,000 sisters and 200 women in formation who make up the Congregation of the Holy Family, the long wait is over.

VATICAN – Catholics cannot place blame for the sexual abuse crisis on "those who came before us" in an attempt "to present ourselves as 'pure,'" said the editorial director of the Vatican media outlets.