News/International

WASHINGTON - Forty-three Catholic dioceses, schools, hospitals, social service agencies and other institutions filed suit in federal court May 21 to stop three government agencies from implementing a mandate that would require them to cover contraceptives and sterilization in their health plans.

“Through this lawsuit, plaintiffs do not seek to impose their religious beliefs on others,” said one of the suits, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana by the diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, diocesan Catholic Charities, St. Anne Home and Retirement Community, Franciscan Alliance, University of St. Francis and Our Sunday Visitor.

ROME - The head of the Legionaries of Christ admitted he knew about the sexual improprieties of a U.S. priest based in Rome and did too little to restrict his high-profile ministry.

But more important than his failure to limit the priest's ministry, he said, is the need to reassure members "that things are handled differently now."

DUBLIN - Irish bishops said they would support the establishment of a national day of atonement where the church, the government and wider society could seek forgiveness for abuse suffered by former residents of state-funded, church-run institutions.

A spokesman for the bishops said they would not oppose the idea of such an event provided it was "sensitively organized" and not rushed.

SYDNEY - The governing body of the Traditional Anglican Communion has suspended Archbishop John Hepworth, whose allegations that he was raped more than 40 years ago as a young Catholic priest by three other clerics were found to be unsubstantiated by investigators.

The disciplinary action by the College of Bishops makes Archbishop Hepworth ineligible to continue in his role as bishop ordinary of the Anglican Catholic Church in Australia and as head of the Traditional Anglican Communion, the breakaway group seeking membership in the Anglican ordinariate established by Pope Benedict XVI.

BOLOGNA, Italy - Church agencies stepped up efforts to support local parishes providing assistance to nearly 5,000 people left homeless by a magnitude 6 earthquake in northern Italy.

Caritas Italy, part of the Catholic church's international aid network, was among the first agencies to respond May 20 by sending staff to the affected communities about 22 miles north of Bologna.

The Italian government was assessing damage May 21 and considered declaring a state of emergency.

SHELBY TOWNSHIP, Mich. - The spiritual leader of Maronite Catholics urged Lebanese in the Detroit area to play a role in the salvation of their homeland during his pastoral visit May 13.

Patriarch Bechara Rai said people of Lebanese origin or heritage in America should use their experience of the way people of various ethnicities, religions and political persuasions live peacefully together in the U.S. to help forge a new civil pact among the contending factions in Lebanon.

"You are living in the great country of the United States, and here the allegiance is not to the person, it is not to the party, it is to the country. It is from you the solution must come," Patriarch Rai told the more than 850 people who attended a banquet in his honor in Shelby Township.

VATICAN CITY - Iraqi Catholics fleeing physical danger in their homeland often find themselves unprepared for the moral threats awaiting their families in the United States, said the head of Chaldean Catholics in the Western U.S.

Seeing a lack of respect for the unborn, altered definitions of marriage and a general disregard for Christian values means Chaldean Catholic families settling in the United States often find themselves in a world they are not at all accustomed to, Chaldean Bishop Sarhad Y. Jammo of the Eparchy of St. Peter the Apostle of San Diego told Catholic News Service May 17.

ROME - The Catholic Church's relationship to Judaism as taught by the Second Vatican Council and the interpretations and developments of that teaching by subsequent popes, "are binding on a Catholic," said the Vatican official responsible for relations with the Jews.

Swiss Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews and a member of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, spoke to reporters May 16 after delivering a speech on Catholic-Jewish relations in light of Vatican II's declaration "Nostra Aetate" on the church's relations with non-Christian religions.

THORNWOOD, N.Y. - A popular, telegenic Legionaries of Christ priest who has appeared over the years as a Church analyst for CNN, CBS, ABC and Fox News has been removed from public ministry after admitting he had a relationship with a woman "a number of years ago" and fathered her child.

In a May 15 statement, Fr. Luis Garza, director of the order's North American territory, announced that Fr. Thomas D. Williams, "after consultation with his superiors, will undergo a period of reflection, prayer and atonement without public ministry."

VATICAN CITY - Reconciliation talks between the Vatican and the Society of St. Pius X have not reached their conclusion but will continue, the Vatican said May 16, after members of its doctrinal congregation examined the latest communication from the head of the breakaway traditionalist group.

"Some observations were formulated which will be kept in mind in further discussions," said Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman, following a meeting of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.