News Briefs

In a letter to the president of Zambia, the country's Catholic bishops called on the government not to ratify an African Union protocol that includes articles on separation, divorce and the annulment of marriage and "the protection of reproductive rights of women by authorizing medical abortion.” • In a statement criticizing development policies that they say threaten the future of Amazonian communities and the environment, nine Peruvian bishops from the Amazon region urged the government in April to overturn a series of environmental decrees issued in 2008. • President Barack Obama's proposal to bar future students from entering the District of Columbia's federally-funded school voucher program means a slow death for an initiative that works, said Washington archdiocesan officials. • Norbertine Father Robert J. Cornell, one of only three priests ever to serve in the U.S. Congress, died May 10 at St. Norbert Abbey in De Pere, Wis. He was 89. A Democrat, Father Cornell represented Wisconsin's 8th District from 1975 to 1979.