News Briefs

Francesco Zanardi arrived at the Vatican on Oct. 10 after walking almost 350 miles to deliver a letter to Pope Benedict XVI asking him to meet Italian victims of clerical abuse and to work harder to ensure bishops worldwide follow Vatican norms on sexual abuse. • Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl welcomed 71 members of a former Episcopal parish into the Catholic Church on Oct. 9 at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington. • Archbishop José H. Gómez of Los Angeles praised Gov. Jerry Brown for authorizing the final components of California’s Dream Act, allowing undocumented graduates of the state’s high schools to go on to college. • Leaders of the Society of St. Pius X met on Oct. 7 to study the Vatican’s conditions for full reintegration into the church. • Richard A. Beyer became the ninth president of Wheeling Jesuit University, West Virginia’s only Catholic university, on Sept. 29. • Worried about dwindling numbers, the Catholic Church in India is exhorting its flock to have more children, challenging government efforts to limit family size in that nation of more than 1.2 billion people.