News Briefs

Noting that for Christians “the death penalty can never be the way to solve problems,” the Coptic Catholic bishop of Assiut, Kyrillos William, spoke out against death sentences handed down by an Egyptian court against more than 500 members of the Muslim Brotherhood. • The British government ordered an immediate halt to the practice after journalists discovered that the remains of more than 15,000 aborted or miscarried babies have been incinerated as “clinical waste” by hospitals in Britain—some even used to generate heat in “waste to energy” plants. • Cardinal George Pell on March 26 told an Australian commission on sexual abuse of children that from “a Christian point of view,” church institutions did not deal fairly with a sexual abuse victim when it refused to enter mediation proceedings in 2004. • Maronite Bishop Simon Atallah of Baalbek-Deir El-Ahmar said he was the target of a failed kidnapping attempt on March 22 as his car was pursued by two four-wheel-drive vehicles in the eastern town of Zahle. • The Vatican announced on March 26 that it has accepted the resignation of Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst of Limburg, a German bishop who was at the center of controversy over expenditures for his residence and a diocesan center.