ROME (ITALY)
Crux
December 23, 2018
By John L. Allen Jr.
There hasn’t been a dull moment in the Catholic Church since Pope Francis was elected in March 2013, but even by his activist and high-octane standards, 2018 was a turbulent year.
The past 12 months have been full of drama, both great highs – the joy of the World Meeting of Families in Dublin in August, for instance – and tremendous lows, above all the stupefying spectacle of a former papal ambassador in America publicly accusing the pope himself of a sex abuse cover-up.
Herewith, the official Crux list of the Top Ten Vatican Stories of 2018, ranked in terms of their relative significance for the life of the Church. This is an entirely subjective enterprise, and others doubtless will assess the major events of the past year differently, but however one puts the pieces together, it’s definitely been a year worth a look back.
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