As conditions on the ground deteriorated, a papal delegation that was scheduled to visit Damascus, Syria, was postponed indefinitely on Oct. 23. • Flooding at the Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes on Oct. 20 temporarily closed much of the popular French pilgrimage site. • Three Assumptionist priests were taken at gunpoint from their home at Our Lady of the Poor Parish in the village of Mbau in the embattled North Kivu province of Congo on Oct. 19 and have not been heard from since. • “In the north of Mali, all Christians were forced to flee,” reports Laurent Balas, a missionary priest of the White Fathers, after Islamic militias seized much of the territory. • Claudio Sciarpelletti, the computer technician at the Vatican secretariat of state accused of aiding and abetting the pope’s butler in stealing confidential Vatican correspondence, was scheduled to be tried at the Vatican on Nov. 5. • Bishop Richard Williamson of Great Britain was expelled from the Society of St. Pius X on Oct. 24 because he refused “to show due respect and obedience to his lawful superiors,” following his sharp criticism of the society’s doctrinal discussions with the Vatican.
News Briefs
Show Comments (
)
Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.
The latest from america
This week on “The Spiritual Life,” Father James Martin speaks with former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg about faith, fatherhood and his “Jesuit background.”
In ‘Where is the Friend’s House?,’ we see the faces of the Iranian people captured with sensitivity and detail.
Among those recognized at two theology conferences in June was Stephen Bevans, S.V.D., to whom the Catholic Theological Society of America gave its highest honor, the John Courtney Murray Award.
“Keeping our gaze on Jesus, we must learn to give a name and voice even to sadness, fear, anguish, indignation, bringing everything into relationship with God,” Pope Leo said.