News Briefs

Deacon Bernard V. Nojadera, right, director of the Office for the Protection of Children and Vulnerable Adults in the Diocese of San Jose, Calif., has been named to head the U.S. bishops’ Secretariat of Child and Youth Protection. • Bishop Eduard Mathos of Bambari, Central African Republic, escaped a kidnapping attempt on June 2 after his car and an accompanying vehicle from Jesuit Refugee Services were ambushed. • On June 5 St. Luke Episcopal Parish in Bladensburg, Md., became the first Anglican parish in the United States to request to join the Catholic Church. • The Rev. John A. Pavlik, O.F.M.Cap., was appointed on June 7 as the executive director of the U.S. Conference of Major Superiors of Men. • Warning that “there is no time to waste,” Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin called on June 2 for the quick release of the findings from the Vatican’s visitation of Ireland and its investigation of the sexual abuse crisis there. • During a speech on June 3 at the U.N. Human Rights Council, the Vatican observer, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, said that multinational corporations have caused “exceptional damage” in underdeveloped countries by ignoring human rights, environmental regulations and labor laws.