NEWS

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.

OTTAWA - Canada's Catholic bishops have published a defense of freedom of conscience and religious freedom as these universal rights come under increasing threat around the world.

The Catholic community and other religious groups are "experiencing a worrisome erosion" of these freedoms, said Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops president Archbishop Richard Smith in an open letter introducing the "Pastoral Letter on Freedom of Conscience and Religious freedom" published May 14 at www.cccb.ca.

(Right-click and save-as to download the letter as a PDF)

TORONTO - Msgr. Wayne Kirkpatrick is about to join Toronto's team of bishops with the credentials of a lawman. But he's a canon lawyer who has never forgotten that canon law has a purpose.

"Canon law is very pastoral," Kirkpatrick told The Catholic Register  May 18, the day his appointment as auxiliary bishop was announced. "The law of love is supreme. And that's reflected in our canons. The (1983) Code (of Canon Law) is developed from the teachings of the Second Vatican Council."

The 54-year-old Kirkpatrick studied canon law at Saint Paul University in Ottawa, taking his licentiate in 1990. His studies in canon law prepared him for work as  judicial vicar, chancellor of the diocese of St. Catharines and his current job as moderator of the St. Catharines' curia.

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.

TORONTO - Msgr. Wayne Kirkpatrick, a priest of the Ontario diocese of St. Catharines, has been appointed auxiliary bishop of the archdiocese of Toronto.

Pope Benedict XVI made the announcement May 18. Bishop-designate Kirkpatrick will be ordained to the episcopate in St. Catharines at a date to be determined before commencing his duties with the archdiocese.

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.

OTTAWA - Raymond Lahey, the former bishop of Antigonish, has been dismissed from the clerical state.

His dismissal comes due to his conviction last year of possessing child pornography for the purposes of importation to Canada. He pleaded guilty in an Ottawa courtroom May 4, 2011 to the charges and served eight months in prison before being released Jan. 4.

TORONTO - Parishes, food banks, shelters and other services to the poor are going to be hit with bills for garbage pickup in Toronto starting July 1.

They're all part of 1,100 entities that were previously exempt from the garbage fees the city charges to businesses. City Hall will raise an extra $2.9 million per year by 2015 when the new fees are fully implemented.