News Briefs

The effort to reintegrate the Society of St. Pius X into the Catholic Church “absolutely does not mean” that the church will accept the anti-Jewish or anti-Semitic positions espoused by some society members, said Cardinal Kurt Koch on Nov. 7 in L’Osservatore Romano. • Bishops in Cuba called on Nov. 6 for emergency assistance to help feed and shelter victims of Hurricane Sandy, which cut a devastating path through the eastern part of that island. • The new archbishop of Canterbury is Justin Welby, 56, right, a former oil executive who “was unable to get away from a sense of God calling.’’ • Two of the nation’s largest Catholic hospital systems, Michigan-based Trinity Health and Pennsylvania-based Catholic Health East, are exploring a consolidation. • Congress will become a shade more religiously diverse this January after the election of two Democrats from Hawaii—Tulsi Gabbard, the first Hindu-American congresswoman, and Mazie Hirono, the nation’s first Buddhist senator. • After almost three and a half years at the Vatican, the U.S. ambassador to the Holy See, Miguel H. Diaz, is returning home to resume teaching at the University of Dayton.