"The suspension offers the Bishop an opportunity for pastoral discernment for the good of the diocese and for the good of Father Rothrock.”

This week on “Inside the Vatican," Colleen Dulle speaks with Phyllis Zagano about the church’s history not only of ordaining women deacons, but also the conversation around ordaining them again.

"If right and proper words were considered against their law, I will endure all the suing, trials and arrests. Numerous predecessors have endured similarly," the 88-year-old cardinal said.

Msgr. Georg Ratzinger, the older brother of Benedict XVI, died on July 1 at the age of 96.

Vatican officials said the Ecclesial Conference of the Amazon aims to be “an effective channel for taking up, from within the territory, many of the proposals that emerged” at the Pan-Amazonian synod.

Polish Catholics have appealed to Pope Francis for help in "rebuilding" the Polish church amid the continuing controversy over that country's episcopate mishandling of the sex abuse crisis.

Sister Helen Prejean, a long-time advocate of abolishing the death penalty, has said that the Supreme Court has "abdicated its legal and moral responsibilities" in allowing executions to proceed in various cases.

A Federal judge has ruled that the restrictions on how many people may gather for church services in New York state cannot be enforced as it presently stands as it is far more stricter than the protocols for comparable secular gatherings.

There has been a huge overall surge in allegations over the past three years as dioceses faced unprecedented pressure to address the decades-old problem of clergy sex abuse.

In 2015, some people objected to the canonization of the Spaniard, like critics did of his beatification in 1988, because of questions about how Father Serra treated the native peoples of California and about the impact of Spanish colonization on native peoples throughout the Americas.