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.

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.

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.

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.

SANTIAGO, Chile – Cardinal Ricardo Ezzati Andrello of Santiago on Thursday denied knowing and giving money to the complainant in a rape case in the cathedral which took place in 2015.

ROME – The clerical abuse scandal has caused everyone in the Catholic Church "pain and unbearable suffering," Pope Francis said, but it also is a call to repentance and the renewal of the church.

VATICAN – A French cardinal was given a six-month suspended sentence at a civil trial after he was found guilty of covering up abuses committed decades ago by a priest.

BHOPAL, India – A man has been arrested for his alleged involvement in the mass rape of four Catholic nuns that occurred more than two decades ago in central India.

The immediate reaction to the mid-February news that Australian Cardinal George Pell was found guilty of sexually abusing two 13-year-old choir boys was that, in addition to any sentence the courts pronounce, the Vatican should move quickly to expel him from the priesthood.

MEXICO CITY – The Mexican bishops' conference has presented an action plan for protecting minors from sexual abuse by clergy and pastoral agents.

SYDNEY – Australian Cardinal George Pell, the highest-ranked Catholic clergyman to be found guilty of child sexual abuse, has had his appeal process fast-tracked and might spend only three more months behind bars before it is heard.

COCHIN, India – As the Vatican grapples to devise stronger protocols and responses following a historic summit focused on clergy sex abuse of minors, five nuns in India complain of church repression for their support of a former superior general who was allegedly raped by a bishop.

MELBOURNE – Following news of Cardinal George Pell’s conviction of sexual abuse of minors, several bishops in Australia have have said they are committed to truth and justice, while declining to comment on Pell’s appeal until it has concluded.

MELBOURNE – Cardinal George Pell is incarcerated at the Melbourne Assessment Prison while he awaits the results of a sentencing hearing held last week. Pell was convicted last year of child sexual abuse.