News/International

PRINCETON, N.J. - Americans' confidence in "Church and organized religion" has been on the decline since 1973 and Catholics' confidence in that institution remains lower than that of Protestants, according to the results of a new Gallup survey.

Forty-six per cent of Catholics express "a great deal or quite a lot of confidence" in the Church and organized religion, compared to 56 per cent of Protestants.

WASHINGTON - Conflict between the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith over the reform of LCWR boils down to whether one can "be a Catholic and have a questioning mind," the conference's president said in an interview on National Public Radio's Fresh Air program.

Franciscan Sister Pat Farrell also said in the July 17 interview that she would like to see discussion about whether "freedom of conscience in the Church (is) genuinely honoured."

VATICAN CITY - Hinting at a willingness to continue discussions with the Vatican and recognizing the full authority of the pope over the church, the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X said it must defend church teaching from error.

"As for all the novelties of the Second Vatican Council, which remain tainted with errors, and for the reforms derived from it," the statement said, "the society can only continue to uphold the affirmations and teachings of the constant magisterium of the church."

ROME - Italian Jesuit Father Paolo Dall'Oglio was expelled from Syria in mid-June after he intensified his public calls for democratic change in the country.

"The blood on the ground must be respected and religious leaders must speak out," Dall'Oglio told Catholic News Service in Rome July 18.

VATICAN CITY - As the Vatican continues working to comply with international standards against money laundering and financing terrorism, it still needs to beef up internal inspection and supervisory powers, said a long-awaited report by European finance experts.

Overall, the Vatican met nine out of 16 "key and core" recommendations, thereby passing its first major test in an effort to become more financially transparent and compliant with international norms.

"The Holy See has come a long way in a very short period of time and many of the building blocks" of a system to combat money laundering and the financing of terrorism "are now formally in place," said the first report on the Vatican by "Moneyval" -- the Council of Europe's Committee of Experts on the Evaluation of Anti-Money Laundering Measures and the Financing of Terrorism.

JACKSON, Miss. - A federal judge allowed Mississippi's only abortion clinic to remain open while it continued to work toward compliance with a new state law permitting only certain doctors to perform abortions there.

District Court Judge Daniel P. Jordan III of Jackson partially lifted the injunction on a law that had been scheduled to take effect July 1 but continued to block sections of the law imposing civil or criminal penalties on violators.

The law requires that abortions be performed only by obstetricians-gynecologists with privileges to admit patients to local hospitals. Currently neither of the out-of-state doctors who perform abortions at the Jackson Women's Health Organization have such privileges.

VATICAN CITY - The head of the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X said he would inform the Vatican soon on the society's official position on Vatican efforts to bring the group back into full communion with the Church.

The response will insist that the society must preserve its identity, which is "the only efficacious means to help the Church restore Christendom," said Bishop Bernard Fellay, superior general of the society.

His remarks were contained in an interview published July 16 on the group's web site, www.dici.org, after members of the society held its general chapter meeting to discuss Vatican efforts to bring it back into full communion.

VATICAN CITY - As violence continued to shake Syria, the Vatican nuncio in Damascus called on the international community to unite in efforts to restore peace.

"In Damascus, the last three days have been very difficult" as the fighting moved to the city, Archbishop Mario Zenari, the nuncio, told Catholic News Service in a telephone interview from the capital July 17.

"The situation compared to a month ago clearly is more tense," he said.

VATICAN CITY - The father of the Pope's personal assistant, who is under arrest in connection with the so-called "VatiLeaks" scandal, described his son as an honest, faithful Catholic and said he hoped his son's "sacrifice" would help the church rid itself of corruption.

Paolo Gabriele, the Pope's personal assistant, is a person of "absolute honesty ... great generosity and moral integrity," who is deeply devoted to the church and the Pope, Andrea Gabriele said in a letter sent to the Italian television station Tgcom 24.

The letter was published on the broadcaster's website July 15.

MANCHESTER, England - A "family triathlon" was a novel idea; as far as Colm Hickey was aware, it hadn't been tried before.

It would involve teams of three people from the same family, each of whom would compete in one of the three categories of the event — either cycling, running or swimming — against other families.

Hickey, in his role as the London 2012 Olympics Catholic "gold champion" of Our Lady and St Joseph parish in London helped with the May 13 family triathlon. A week later, there was a huge soccer tournament, also organized by Hickey and, closer to the July 27-Aug. 12 Olympics, there will be other parish-based, though not exclusively Catholic, sporting activities such as track-and-field events for children in the area.