NEWS

LONDON - The leader of the Catholic Church in Nigeria has criticized his government for allegedly failing to protect Christians in the north of his country from attack by Islamist terrorists.

Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama of Jos, president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Nigeria, said he could not understand why the government appeared powerless to prevent the killings of Christians.

Speaking April 30, a day after 21 people were killed and 20 others injured in co-ordinated attacks on Sunday services at a university campus in Kano and a Protestant chapel in Maiduguri, the archbishop said the incidents showed "that government security is not working."

OTTAWA - A bill that would make it possible for Canada to prosecute human trafficking offenses committed by citizens or permanent residents outside the country has passed in the House of Commons.

Conservative MP Joy Smith's private member's Bill C-310 passed a third reading vote April 27 and has gone on to the Senate.

VATICAN CITY - The co-founder of Wikipedia told a Vatican audience that his online encyclopedia could contribute to peace by promoting "a more thoughtful world," even as the site was under fire for how it referred to those who oppose and support legalized abortion.

Jimmy Wales, who co-founded Wikipedia in 2001, was invited to address the annual assembly of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. The meeting at the Vatican April 27-May 1 focused on Blessed John XXIII's 1963 encyclical "Pacem in Terris" and continuing challenges to promoting peace and justice in the world.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - The March visit to Cuba by Pope Benedict XVI has helped reawaken people's interest in the Catholic Church, according to two Cuban bishops visiting the United States.

But it also has stirred criticism of the church's efforts to work with the government more and may be connected to a fire of suspicious origin that gutted a travel agency that organizes charter flights from Florida to Cuba.

Remarks at an April 24 forum at Harvard University by Havana Cardinal Jaime Ortega Alamino about the church's role in Cuba riled some of the outspoken critics of the Castro government in both Havana and Florida.

LOS ANGELES - A cross will be restored to a war memorial in a remote part of a national park in the California desert, according to a settlement agreement approved April 16 and announced April 24.

District Court Judge Robert Timlin signed off on an agreement between the U.S. Department of Justice and the American Civil Liberties Union to swap the half hectare parcel at Sunrise Rock in the Mojave National Preserve for land of equal value elsewhere in the preserve that was donated for the trade. The memorial site will be owned by the Veterans Home of California-Barstow, Veterans of Foreign Wars Post No. 385E.

OXFORD, England - Portuguese Catholic officials criticized government plans to suppress two religious public holidays as part of an austerity drive and urged postponing the plans until next year.

Fr. Manuel Morujao, spokesman for the Portuguese bishops' conference, told Catholic News Service that Church officials understand that government leaders are trying to solve the nation's economic crisis by improving economic competitiveness. In addition to removing two religious holidays, the government plans to eliminate Portugal's Oct. 5 Republic Day and Dec. 1 Independence Restoration Day.

The religious holidays will be negotiated between the Foreign Ministry in Lisbon and Vatican officials, under the terms of Portugal's 2004 concordat with the Vatican.

OTTAWA - Organizers are anticipating a record turnout of marchers and bishops for the 15th National March for Life to be held May 10 in Ottawa.

More than a dozen bishops participated in last year’s March for Life, which drew 15,000 people, the largest crowd in the event’s history. An additional 10,000 people attended marches in British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan.

“We were absolutely delighted with the turnout last year and we’re looking forward to an even bigger turnout this year,” said Campaign Life Coalition (CLC) national organizer Mary Ellen Douglas.

MISSISSAUGA, ONT. - It should come as no surprise to anybody that Catholic students are active and informed about issues that are directly related to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, said Bruce Campbell, spokesperson for the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board.

But a recent anti-abortion petition that was circulated at St. Joseph's Catholic High School in Mississauga in support of MP Stephen Woodworth's private member's motion to re-open a debate on Section 223 of the Criminal Code was called "coercion" by the Centre for Inquiry Canada, a Toronto-based atheist group, in media reports. Section 223 states a child in the womb is not human until birth.

I’m sorry. In writing about a controversial documentary earlier this month (Dramatic Jesus Discovery documentary lacks hard evidence), I never should have brought up the Resurrection in such an offhand way. I should never have imagined the Resurrection could be explained in a single paragraph of a newspaper article.

Simcha Jacobovici’s documentary The Jesus Discovery provocatively asked “what if” a tomb now under an apartment complex in Jerusalem actually contains the bones of Jesus and His family. In my review, I took the bait and posed the question to myself.

VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI named the members of a papal commission he established in March to investigate a series of leaks of letters exchanged among Vatican officials and between the officials and the Pope himself.

Spanish Cardinal Julian Herranz, 82, a former president of the Pontifical Council for the Interpretation of Legislative Texts, will lead the commission. The two other members are 88-year-old retired Slovakian Cardinal Jozef Tomko, prefect emeritus of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples; and the retired archbishop of Palermo, Cardinal Salvatore De Giorgi, 81.