Pope Francis closed out the Vatican’s four-day summit on sexual abuse by clergy on Sunday with a vow to confront abusers with “the wrath of God,” end cover-ups by their superiors, and prioritize the victims of what he called a “brazen, aggressive, and destructive evil.” At the end of Mass before nearly 200 Catholic bishops and other leaders, he offered an eight-point pledge of priorities going forward, calling for a change in the church’s defensive mentality and a vow to never again cover up cases.

Catholic religious orders from around the world issued public apologies on Tuesday for failing to address sexual abuse of children by their priests. Two umbrella organizations representing the global religious orders of the Catholic Church—the Union of Superiors General for male orders and the International Union of Superiors General for female orders—issued a joint statement days before a sexual abuse summit organized by Pope Francis is set to begin on Thursday.

Pope Francis on Tuesday for the first time publicly acknowledged that clergy have sexually abused nuns. “There have been priests and bishops who have” committed acts of sexual abuse, the pope said during a news conference aboard the papal plane on his return from the United Arab Emirates. “Should we do something more? Yes. Is there the will? Yes. But it’s a path that we have already begun.”

Pope Francis in a letter released Thursday encouraged U.S. bishops meeting for a weeklong retreat near Chicago to unify as the Roman Catholic Church deals with a “crisis of credibility.” In the eight-page letter addressed to the bishops, Francis said church leaders must reckon with parishioners’ pain, heal divisions, and devise specific approaches that go beyond “creating new committees or improving flow charts.”

The Illinois attorney general’s office found that 500 more Catholic clergymen have been accused of sexually abusing children than the six archdioceses in the state have publicly identified, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan said Wednesday. The archdioceses listed 185 clergy members as having been “credibly” accused of child sexual abuse, she said, but the actual total is around 700.

A Vatican committee sent a letter on Tuesday warning that the credibility of the Catholic Church is in jeopardy over the global sexual abuse scandal. The letter went to the presidents of bishops’ conferences around the world who will gather in February for a Vatican summit on sexual abuse prevention. The organizing committee urged attendees to meet personally with victims beforehand “to learn firsthand the suffering they have endured.”

As the Chinese government demolishes crosses, closes unregistered churches, and controls religion more tightly than at any time since the Cultural Revolution, the Vatican has reached a provisional deal with Communist officials that could lead to the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and the Catholic Church.