On July 26, nine men were ordained at the Cathedral of the Incarnation in Nashville, Tenn., the largest group ordained together in the diocese’s 177-year history. • Pope Francis celebrated the feast of St. Ignatius Loyola in Rome on July 31 by meeting the family of Paolo Dall’Oglio, an Italian Jesuit priest missing in northern Syria since July 2013. • After nine years of study, the Congregation for Divine Worship has decided that the sign of peace will stay where it is in the Mass, but that it must be conducted with dignity and awareness that it is not a liturgical version of “good morning.” • The Rev. Andrew White, an Anglican canon at St. George’s Church in Baghdad, said that while the world’s attention was diverted to the Gaza Strip in late July, more than 1,500 people were killed by Islamic extremists in Iraq. • In his column in the July 30 issue of The Catholic Spirit, Archbishop John C. Nienstedt of St. Paul-Minneapolis rejected demands that he resign because of past mishandling of sexual abuse claims. • At the conclusion of his official visit on Aug. 1, U.N. Special Rapporteur Heiner Bielefeldt reported that “serious violations of freedom of religion or belief are a reality in Vietnam.”
