News Briefs

On Sept. 30 Pope Francis announced he would declare his two predecessors Blessed John XXIII and John Paul II saints at a single ceremony on April 27. • In the largest donation in Georgetown University's history, the alumnus Frank H. McCourt Jr. has contributed $100 million to create the McCourt School of Public Policy. • The World Bank reports that the world's CO2 emissions grew 4.9 percent in 2010, the third largest annual increase since 1990, while China, the United States, India, Russia and Japan continue to be the top five emitters. • According to Pew Research, three-quarters of U.S. Catholics (76 percent) say the church should permit birth control; about half (54 percent) favor same-sex marriage, and a third say homosexual behavior is a sin. • Bishop Richard E. Pates of Des Moines, Iowa, chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee on International Justice and Peace, reiterated a call to lift the embargo on Cuba in a letter of Sept. 26 to the Obama administration, arguing that "engagement will do more than isolation to advance human rights and alleviate human suffering." • At a White House summit on Sept. 16, women religious noted a rising groundswell of support to restrict human trafficking across the United States, said Margaret Nacke, a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Concordia, Kan.