From CNS, Staff and other sources
Hundreds are dead and more than 120,000 have been displaced after weeks of ethnic violence between the Murle and Luo Nuer communities in South Sudan’s Jonglei State. • Repre-sentatives of most of the world’s bishops’ conferences and 30 religious orders met in Rome on Feb. 6-9 to launch a global initiative to improve efforts to stop clerical sexual abuse and better protect children and vulnerable adults. • The Plowshares activist Bill Bichsel, S.J., ended a two-week fast he began in mid-January to protest his transfer to solitary confinement and conditions at the Federal Detention Center near Seattle, Wash. • The Rev. Larry Snyder, President and chief executive officer of Catholic Charities USA, called awarding the agency’s Centennial Medal on Feb. 2 to Cristo Rey Network’s founder, John Foley, S.J., “a tribute to Father John’s commitment and dedication to improving the lives of young people in communities that otherwise wouldn’t have a chance.” • On Jan. 30, Anita Collins and Anita Guzzardi, employees of the New York and Philadelphia archdioceses respectively, were accused of stealing $1 million each in decades-long embezzlement schemes.