NEWS

WASHINGTON - The Food and Drug Administration "acted irresponsibly" with its decision to lower the age limit from 17 to 15 for purchasing an over-the-counter emergency contraceptive, said an official of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

JERUSALEM - An Israeli court has approved the construction of the Israeli separation barrier along a route that will nearly surround a convent and its primary school and confiscate most of their land on the outskirts of Beit Jalla, West Bank.

GATINEAU, Que. - Toronto's Cardinal Thomas Collins has urged the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to not to let the faith community get “rolled over.”

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis called for an end to slave labor and human trafficking as well as greater efforts to create dignified work for more people.

ASSISI, Italy - Becoming an honorary citizen of Assisi, Israeli President Shimon Peres said the town's most famous son, St. Francis, has important lessons to teach all people of good will.

VATICAN CITY - Retired Pope Benedict XVI is scheduled to move into a remodeled convent at the Vatican May 2, the Vatican spokesman said.

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic - Marianist Brother Richard E. Joyal, who was murdered in Haiti after withdrawing money at an ATM in late April, was a dedicated missionary who had worked in trying circumstances around the world, according to fellow members of the Society of Mary order.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - A suspect was being held on $75,000 bond after being arrested following the stabbing of four worshippers at an Albuquerque parish near the end of Mass April 28.

VATICAN CITY - Israeli President Shimon Peres officially invited Pope Francis to Israel and left their meeting at the Vatican telling the pope, "I am expecting you in Jerusalem and not just me, but all the people of Israel."

SHANGHAI - Bishop Aloysius Jin Luxian of Shanghai, a prominent and controversial figure in the Chinese Catholic Church, died April 27 of pancreatic cancer. He was 96.