News Briefs

Pope Benedict XVI has accepted the resignation of Bishop John H. Ricard, S.S.J., 71, of the Diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee, Fla., because of health concerns. • Among 4,700 people who will be received into the Catholic Church this year in the United Kingdom are 900 former Anglicans, including 61 former Anglican clergymen. • Nahdlatul Ulama, an Indonesian Muslim organization, expressed concern on March 14 about the level of intolerance toward Christians shown by extremists, citing authorities in Bogor, West Java, who were preventing Christians from taking possession of a church they had constructed. • Catholic Relief Services (www.crs.org) and Caritas Internationalis (www.caritas.org) are accepting donations to support their response to March 11’s earthquake and tsunamis in Japan. • At a penitential service on March 11 in Philadelphia’s Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul, Cardinal Justin Rigali acknowledged “the grave offense to God and the great harm to innocent victims of the evil of sexual abuse of minors, especially by members of the clergy.” • The Vatican established a Facebook page for Pope John Paul II at www.facebook.com/vatican.johnpaul2.