News Briefs

Twelve defendants received six-year sentences from a court in India’s Orissa state on Nov. 27 because of their participation in mob violence against Christian communities in 2008. • Pope Benedict XVI, speaking on the day before the Dec. 1 observance of World AIDS Day, called for special attention to those unable to afford life-saving H.I.V./AIDS antiretroviral drugs, especially pregnant and nursing women affected by the disease. • On Nov. 19 the Maryknoll Fathers announced that in accordance with an October Vatican ruling, Roy Bourgeois has been dismissed from the society, laicized and excommunicated because of his participation “in the invalid ordination of a woman and a simulated Mass” in 2008. • The late archbishop of Florence, Cardinal Elia Dalla Costa, has been recognized as Righteous Among the Nations by the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem because of his efforts to rescue Jews during the Nazi occupation of Italy. • The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that the rate and number of abortions performed in the United States fell by 5 percent in 2009, “the largest single-year decrease” since 2000.