“I am not clinging to my office,” Cardinal Marx said on Thursday. “The offer to resign last year was meant very seriously. Pope Francis decided otherwise and asked me to continue my ministry responsibly.”

With rising tensions in the region and the threat of a possible Russian-Ukrainian conflict spreading, Pope Francis established Jan. 26 as a day of prayer for peace in Ukraine.

A Vatican editorial defended retired Pope Benedict XVI’s record in fighting clerical sexual abuse after the release of a report that accused him of mishandling four cases during his time as archbishop of Munich.

The lone cardinal indicted in the Vatican’s big fraud and embezzlement trial has issued a formal protest to the court claiming the pope’s prosecutors had offended his dignity by suggesting he was having sex with a co-defendant.

A broad debate has erupted in Germany after former Pope Benedict XVI corrected a central statement he made on the Munich abuse report presented last week.

More than 120 employees of the Catholic Church in Germany publicly outed themselves as queer on Monday, saying they want to “live openly without fear” in the church and pushing for it to allow the blessing of same-sex couples.