Signs Of the Times

The Catholic theologian Miguel Díaz was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on Aug. 4 as the ninth U.S. ambassador to the Vatican.

Topics to be addressed inclue governance; vocation promotion, admission and formation policies; and spiritual life and common life.

Pope Benedict has urged the minority Christian community not to be deterred by the attack on Christian homes.

The Mexican Catholic bishops’ conference has criticized federal police for bursting into a Mass in the state of Michoaca.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement will no longer detain families at a much-criticized former medium-security prison in Texas.

A statement from the Secretariat of Public Security apologized for a police raid that interrupted a Mass in Michoaca.

A Zambian priest said the nation’s information minister should resign for accusing the Catholic Church of complicity in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

A Catholic archbishop said only a few people accused in last year’s violence against Christians have been arrested.

Special Olympics founder Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who died Aug. 11, was “a woman of ardent faith and generous public service” said the apostolic nuncio to the United States.

Can mass violence in Darfur, Congo and Somalia be stopped? A report from the United Nations General Assembly.