Archbishop Augustine Obiora Akubueze of Benin City and Bishop Donatus Aihmiosion Ogun of Uromi said the situation was becoming more serious because herdsmen committing the attacks were becoming more brazen.

CANTERBURY, England - Labelling people who are worried about mass migration into their country as racist is “absolutely outrageous,” Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby wrote in The House, a magazine read mainly by members of Parliament.

MANILA, Philippines - The head of the Philippine bishops' conference said helping the poor and getting rid of political dynasties should be front and centre in the months leading up to the country's May elections.

MANILA, Philippines - The president of the Philippine bishops' conference called climate change a matter of social justice and said that caring for Earth should not just be a goal to benefit this generation but also future generations.

WARSAW, Poland - The head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church expressed concern that the world's richest countries are failing to honour a 1994 agreement that promised Ukraine security for giving up its Soviet-era nuclear weapons.

OXFORD, England - A Belgian bishop said the president of the bishops' conference urged Catholics to respect a court judgment against him for failing to act on allegations of abuse.

Cardinal Francis George, recently retired archbishop of Chicago, died in his bed at home, as he said he would. In his latter years, the intellectual leader of the Catholic Church in the United States was famous for his bleak view of the future of religious liberty in America.

Cardinal Jean-Claude Turcotte of Montreal, one of the most popular Quebeckers alive even as the province grew more decidedly secular, has entered the last stage of his life.

VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis accepted Scotland Cardinal Keith O'Brien's decision to renounce all "duties and privileges" associated with being a cardinal.

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador - Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero will be beatified in San Salvador May 23, said Italian Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, the postulator or chief promoter of the archbishop's sainthood cause.

NEW YORK - Cardinal Edward Egan, who served as archbishop of New York through the trauma of the 9/11 terror attacks and the clergy sex abuse scandal but was best known for administrative acumen that helped solidify the finances of the sprawling archdiocese, died March 5. He was 82.

BEAUPRÉ, QUE. - The mission of the Church in North American is to go “con-cretely to places on the periphery,” Cuban Cardinal Jaime Ortega told Canada’s bishops on Sept. 16.

OTTAWA - Pope Benedict XVI named Bishop Murray Chatlain of Mackenzie-Fort Smith, Northwest Territories, to be the new archbishop of Keewatin-Le Pas, Man.

MANCHESTER, ENGLAND - The newly appointed leader of the world’s Anglicans is a former oil executive who said his spiritual director was a Catholic monk.

Bishop Justin Welby of Durham, who will become the new archbishop of Canterbury, did not name the monk, but told a Nov. 9 news conference at London’s Lambeth Palace that he was influenced by both Benedictine and Ignatian spirituality. He also told reporters that he would be voting in favour of the ordination of women as bishops when the General Synod will decide the matter at a two-day meeting beginning Nov. 19.

Welby’s appointment as the primate of England and the leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion was announced Nov. 9 following selection by the Crown Nominations Commission and approval of Queen Elizabeth II, the supreme governor of the Church of England. The 56-year-old will be enthroned as the 105th archbishop of Canterbury in Canterbury Cathedral March 21 in succession to Archbishop Rowan Williams, who leaves the post in December.

Welby has been described as an Anglican evangelical with sympathy for the Catholic tradition. A Nov. 9 press release by the Church of England said he has “frequently said that the Roman Catholic approach to Christian social teaching, beginning with the encyclical of Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum, up to Pope Benedict XVI’s Caritas Veritate, has greatly influenced his social thinking.”

Welby told the Lambeth press conference he knew the Church of England was “facing very hard issues.” 

“In 10 days or so the General Synod will vote on the ordination of women as bishops, and I will be voting in favour and join my voice in urging the synod to go forward with this change,” he said.

The archbishop-designate also noted that the Anglican Communion was divided over issues of sexuality but said that it would be wrong to tolerate “any form of homophobia in any part of the church.”