A report on decades of sexual abuse in Germany that shone an unflattering spotlight on retired Pope Benedict XVI has come on top of already strong pressure in Germany to reconsider Catholic rules on issues including homosexuality and women’s roles.

A long-awaited report on sexual abuse in Germany’s Munich diocese has faulted retired Pope Benedict XVI’s handling of cases when he was archbishop in the 1970s and 1980s.

The archbishop of Paris says Pope Francis has accepted his resignation after he admitted to an “ambiguous” relationship with a woman in 2012.

Victims of sex abuse within France’s Catholic Church have welcomed a new report that says an estimated 330,000 children were sexually abused over the past 70 years.

Pope Francis has refused to accept the resignation of German Cardinal Reinhard Marx over the sex abuse scandal in the church.

A leading German cardinal and confidante of Pope Francis has offered to resign over the church’s mishandling of clergy sexual abuse scandals and declared that the church had arrived at “a dead end.”.