Rhina Guidos

As Pope Francis was arriving in Panama Jan. 23, bishops from the United States wasted no time addressing the sex abuse scandal back home during a popular event aimed at American and other English-speaking World Youth Day pilgrims.

Archbishop Ulloa said it was his hope that the church's teachings, the sacraments, the kinship of the upcoming days would bring about an encounter with Jesus Christ for those facing challenges and help them confront certain feelings within, particularly the "anti-values" of a system that offers a false sense of happiness.

Nicaragua has, for almost a year, been undergoing a crisis involving a government accused by detractors of killing and injuring its citizens, violating their human rights, threatening independent media and usurping power. In the middle of it all, the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, from its bishops to the laity, has been in the thick of the drama.

In a letter sent to priests of the Archdiocese of Washington, Cardinal Wuerl apologized for what he called a "lapse of memory," clarifying that he knew of at least one abuse allegation against former U.S. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, but he had "forgotten" about it. 

No sooner had President Donald Trump finished his Jan. 8 nine-minute speech, his first such event televised in prime time from the Oval Office, about what he called a "crisis" at the border, than Catholic groups and others began tearing apart his arguments.

As U.S. bishops gathered in early January at a seminary in Illinois to pray and reflect about the American church's sex abuse crisis, reports trickled out about the possible fate of one their own being decided overseas.

Catholics working in border communities such as El Paso, Texas, have been impacted by Washington's squabbles, and expressed anger about experiencing more than just daily inconveniences.

Year in review: The most dramatic immigration development of 2018 took place around summer when then-U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a new policy that resulted in separating children from parents or other family members traveling with them and then placing the minors in detention centers.

Immigration officials announced new health checks for immigrant children under detention after a second child, an 8-year-old boy, died Christmas Eve while under the agency's care.

As the U.S. bishops entered the last public part of their 2018 fall general assembly, centered largely on the clergy sex abuse crisis, six clergy sex abuse survivors announced Nov. 14 a lawsuit against the prelates' main organization, the U.S. Catholic bishops Conference.

The U.S. bishops discussed the establishment of a hotline devoted to collecting complaints about a bishop's alleged abuse of a minor, sexual harassment, misconduct involving adults or failure to respond to abuse accusations.

A New York auxiliary bishop has been removed from public ministry pending a Vatican review of a decades-old accusation of sexual abuse against him, a claim he denies, the Archdiocese of New York said in a letter released Oct. 31.

An attorney for the U.S. Catholic Bishops conference has confirmed that federal officials have asked the organization to keep documents and other files that might pertain to possible sex abuse allegations and other matters and to order the same of all dioceses around the country. 

Federal officials sought entry to two properties belonging to the Diocese of Brownsville, Texas, seeking to survey the land for construction of a border wall on it, but in an Oct. 29 statement, Brownsville Bishop Daniel Flores said he did not consent to such use because such a structure "would limit freedom of the church to exercise her mission in the Rio Grande Valley."

Days after the Catholic Church declared Salvadoran Archbishop Óscar Arnulfo Romero a saint, a judge in El Salvador issued a capture order for a former military captain suspected of killing the religious leader in 1980 as he celebrated Mass.

The attorney general for the District of Columbia is the latest official to announce an investigation into clergy sex abuse in the Catholic Church and said his office will look at possible abuse cases in the Archdiocese of Washington.

Some students, alumni and faculty members at The Catholic University of America in Washington are calling for the resignation of dean Will Rainford following a series of tweets he wrote criticizing Brett Kavanaugh's accusers.

Some attended the rally with hard hats on as others spoke about how an immigration program in peril helped them over the years pour millions into the U.S. economy, and also contributed to their role in physically rebuilding the country's iconic structures and cities after disasters.

The Diocese of Brooklyn and an after-school program in New York have settled a case out of court for $27.5 million with four men who say they were sexually abused as boys, between ages 8 and 12, by a man whom the diocese identified as a "volunteer worker."

California's Stanford University will strip the name of 18th-century Franciscan friar, St. Junipero Serra, from some of its properties but keep a street named after him.