Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican's chief representative to the UN agencies in Geneva, made a strong appeal for the right of religious freedom of all people to be respected and urged world leaders to take action against those who persecute religious minorities.
Mgr Tomasi said harassment of religious minorities often is "encouraged by the silent collusion of state authorities and by a judicial system that is ineffective or partial".
Recent studies show that nearly 70 per cent of the world's population live in countries that restrict religious practices.
September beatification for Italian teen
Bishop Pier Giorgio Micchiardi of Acqui said that Chiara Badano, an Italian who died of bone cancer just before her 19th birthday, will be beatified on September 25 at a shrine outside Rome.
Badano was born on October 29, 1971, in northern Italy. She was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a bone malignancy, when she was 17. When she was given the news, she vowed to accept it as God's will. "If you want it, Jesus, so do I," she was reported to have said during a painful therapy session, adding that "embraced pain makes one free".
Vatican position on Wisconsin priest abuser
Regarding the case published in The New York Times about a Wisconsin priest who sexually abused deaf children, the Vatican said that by the time it learned of the case in the late 1990s, the priest was elderly and in poor health. The Vatican suggested that the priest continue to be restricted in ministry instead of laicised, and he died four months later.
Vatican officials who spoke on background to the Catholic News Service said The New York Times story was unfair because it ignored the fact that, at the urging of Cardinal Ratzinger himself, new procedures to deal with priest abusers were put in place in 2002, including measures making it easier to laicise them. "This would be handled differently today, based on jurisprudence and experience," one Vatican official told Catholic News Service. "But you can't accuse people of not applying in 1998 a principle that was established in 2002."
Dutch bishops launch sex abuse inquiry
An ex-mayor of The Hague was recently appointed by the Dutch Catholic bishops to lead an independent inquiry into the over 200 reports of sex abuse in the country.
"The number of reports of abuse in former Catholic educational establishments requires further investigation," the bishops said. "Bishops and religious workers offer their deep-felt sympathy and apologies to those who were victims of abuse in Catholic boarding schools."
Chinese priest unshaken by arrest
A Chinese priest of the 'underground' Catholic Church has been arrested for the crime of organising a camp for 300 students. Fr John Baptist Luo was unmoved by the threat of imprisonment. "I'm ready to go to jail," he told the Asia News service. "I would be happy to serve as a witness to Christ and follow the example of many holy martyrs."
Compiled by Fr Joe Borg