A senior Vatican official told an Australian sex abuse inquiry that he did not act when a boy raised abuse allegations against a cleric in the 1970s.

Interrupted by jeers from observers, one of Pope Francis’ top advisers denied an accusation that his testimony to an inquiry into child sex abuse was an attempt to deflect blame for the Catholic Church transferring Australia’s worst paedophile priest from parish to parish.

Pope Francis has approved an unprecedented Vatican department to judge bishops accused of covering up or not preventing sexual abuse of minors, in an attempt to meet a key demand by victims’ groups.

Pope Francis’s finance minister has denied an allegation that he offered a bribe to a victim of clergy abuse to protect a paedophile priest.

The Vatican’s economy minister has said hundreds of millions of euros were found “tucked away” in accounts of various Holy See departments without having appeared in the city-state’s balance sheets.

1. Moco Loco

Pope Francis has announced the first major overhaul of the Vatican’s outdated and scandal-plagued bureaucracy in a quarter-century, creating an economics secretariat to control all economic, administrative, personnel, and procurement functions of the Holy See.

A soldier was ordered to keep on his armour at a shooting range safe haven, before Irish ranger Michael ‘Mike’ Maguire was shot and killed, because of the danger of bullet ricochets.

CATHOLICS worldwide celebrated the beatification of the late Pope John Paul II, with the faithful jamming into churches to pray and witness on giant television screens the Vatican ceremony that brought him one step closer to possible sainthood.

POPE Benedict XVI canonised Australia’s first saint, Mary MacKillop, at a Mass in Saint Peter’s Square in the Vatican yesterday in front of tens of thousands of cheering pilgrims.

The last member of former Royal Bank of Scotland boss Fred Goodwin's failed top team is set to leave the group with a £517,000 (€585,529)-a-year pension.

Young Roman Catholic pilgrims attended religious classes throughout Sydney today, a quiet recovery after a Mass and pop concert thronged by more than 100,000 people the night before.

THE head of Australia’s Roman Catholic Church yesterday announced he would temporarily step aside during an investigation into allegations he sexually abused a child.