News Briefs

Lizzy Myers of Mansfield, Ohio, a 5-year-old girl who has a disease that is gradually rendering her blind and deaf, met the pope as part of her parents’ “visual bucket list,” during his general audience in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican on April 6. • The relics of St. Elian, a third-century Syrian saint, which originally were thought to have been destroyed by members of the so-called Islamic State militia, were found in early April amid the rubble of the desecrated Mar Elian Church in Qaryatain. • Human rights groups conducted a vigil on April 5 outside the World Bank in Washington to remember Honduran environmental and indigenous rights activist Berta Cáceres and reiterate a call for an independent investigation of her assassination. • In the capitals of both Armenia and Azerbaijan, crowds gathered in early April to voice support for their respective militaries after four days of intense fighting in the contested Nagorno-Karabakh region. • Archbishop Luigi Bonazzi, Canada’s apostolic nuncio, reported on April 6 that Pope Francis is considering a request from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada to offer an apology, perhaps during a visit to Canada, for the Catholic Church’s role in the notorious Indian residential schools.