News/International

MEXICO CITY - A strong earthquake shook southern and central regions of Mexico March 20, but it had little impact on the region Pope Benedict XVI will visit.

"Everything is fine here," said Father Jorge Raul Villegas, spokesman for the Archdiocese of Leon, which will host Pope Benedict March 23-26.

OXFORD, England - A church-backed report has documented rising anti-Christian prejudice in Europe, despite calls for fairer legislation and measures to curb discrimination.

"Studies suggest 85 percent of hate crimes in Europe are directed against Christians -- it is high time for the public debate to respond to this reality," said Gudrun Kugler, director of the Vienna-based Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians.

VATICAN CITY - A Vatican-appointed investigation of the church in Ireland recognized serious shortcomings in the handling of accusations of the sexual abuse of minors, yet found that bishops, clergy and lay faithful are doing an "excellent" job in creating safe environments for children today.

The investigators found that Irish bishops need to update their child protection guidelines, establish "more consistent admission criteria" for seminarians, and formulate policies on how best to deal with clergy and religious accused of abuse.

VATICAN CITY - Praising the ecumenical commitment of the late Coptic Orthodox Pope Shenouda III of Alexandria, Pope Benedict XVI offered his condolences to Orthodox Christians in Egypt on the death of their patriarch.

Pope Shenouda, who served as patriarch of the Coptic Orthodox Church for 41 years, died March 17 at the age of 88.

VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI has established a commission to investigate a series of leaks of letters exchanged among Vatican officials and between the officials and the Pope himself.

Archbishop Angelo Becciu, Vatican substitute secretary of state, said March 16 that the papal commission would try "to shed light on the whole affair," while a Vatican tribunal would look into taking legal action against those who gave the documents to reporters, and the Vatican Secretariat of State would carry out an administrative review of every Vatican office.

KIEV, Ukraine - The major archbishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Church said government-backed legislation to transfer control of key national Christian shrines to the Orthodox Church was "a clear threat to the interdenominational peace and agreement established in our state during recent years.

"Do the authors of this bill understand that, by their initiative, they are again pushing our motherland into a whirlpool of interdenominational -- and in this case interethnic -- confrontation with unpredictable consequences?" asked Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of Kiev-Halych.

MANCHESTER, England - The leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion has announced his resignation.

Archbishop Rowan Williams of Canterbury said in a March 16 statement that he would step down at the end of December. The archbishop, leader of the Church of England, plans to take a job as master of Magdalene College at the University of Cambridge, England, beginning in January.

VATICAN CITY - The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, with the approval of Pope Benedict XVI, has defined as "insufficient" the position of the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X on certain basic doctrinal principles and criteria for interpreting church teaching.

U.S. Cardinal William J. Levada, prefect of the doctrinal congregation, met for two hours March 16 with Bishop Bernard Fellay, superior of the society, to explain the Vatican's evaluation of the position of the SSPX, said Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman.

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic - Haitian and Dominican bishops said they will create a commission that will work to help reconstruct Haiti more than two years after a major earthquake destroyed the Caribbean nation.

Several Catholic groups have been working on the ground toward reconstructing the country. The commission will differ in that it will focus on recruiting volunteers and encouraging donations from the private sector.

PHILADELPHIA - Anita Guzzardi, former chief financial officer of the Philadelphia Archdiocese, turned herself into Philadelphia police March 13 after she was charged with theft, forgery and unlawful use of a computer.

Guzzardi, 43, is believed to have embezzled more than $900,000 from the archdiocese's general operating fund to pay her own gambling debts and credit card bills before she was fired in July 2011.