VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis met Wednesday with a delegation of Muslim leaders from Great Britain along with Cardinal Vincent Nichols of Westminster to promote dialogue and collaboration following the deadly attack in London last month.

British bishops were quick to condemn a surge in racist and xenophobic incidents that followed the divisive vote that saw Great Britain bid adieu to the European Union. In the aftermath of the Brexit referendum, police reported a 57-per-cent spike in verbal and physical assaults on visible minorities, immigrants and even on some long-time residents born abroad.

Updated 01/22/13

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI has raised the church jurisdictions for Ukrainian Catholics in Great Britain and France to the level of eparchies, or dioceses, and named the U.S. bishops who had been their exarchs to be their eparchial bishops.