News Briefs

The Vatican and the Palestine Liberation Organization have resumed diplomatic talks toward an agreement “regulating and promoting the presence and activities of the Catholic Church in the Palestinian Territories.” • On Dec. 13 two Jesuit priests, William J. Bichsel, 82, and Stephen M. Kelly, 61, and three Sacred Heart Sisters, Anne Montgomery, 83, Susan Crane, 65, and Lynne Greenwald, 61, were convicted on charges related to a protest action against nuclear weapons at a naval base in Washington State. • According to a decree from the Legionaries of Christ on Dec. 6, members of the order and its lay association may privately keep photos of the order’s disgraced priest-founder, Marcial Maciel Degollado, but they cannot publicly display photographs of him “alone or with the Holy Father.” • Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory of Atlanta succeeded Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of New York as moderator of Jewish affairs for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, effective Dec. 12. • Senior South Korean priests asked Cardinal Nicholas Cheong Jin-suk on Dec. 13 to resign as archbishop of Seoul after he publically disagreed with a statement from his fellow Korean bishops that deplored a dam project as “thoughtless development.”