News Briefs

The U.S. Knights of Columbus are partnering with Project Medishare for Haiti to make prosthetic limbs available to Haitian children injured during the earthquake on Jan. 12. • The Turkish government’s decision to allow Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople to celebrate the feast of the Dormition of Mary on Aug. 15 at the Panagia Soumela Monastery was a sign of hope for Turkey’s Christian minority, said Thomas Michel, S.J., of Ankara • A coalition of former employees, patients and Greenwich Village residents is suing the New York State Department of Health demanding documents related to the closure of St. Vincent’s Hospital in April. • The hedge fund titan and atheist Robert Wilson backed up his faith in New York City Catholic schools with $5.6 million to fund a program that connects Catholic elementary schools to potential alumni-donors. • The Parkman Professor of Divinity and Comparative Theology at Harvard Divinity School, Francis X. Clooney, S.J., was elected a corresponding fellow of the British Academy, Great Britain’s national body for the humanities and social sciences. He is a frequent contributor to America’s Web edition.