News Briefs

A special collection for Haiti in Catholic parishes nationwide has raised $58.7 million to date. • In a practical demonstration of the church’s effort to protect children and punish offenders, the Vatican now offers an online summary of its procedures for handling sex abuse allegations. • At a Mass on April 11 in the aftermath of the death of Poland’s President Lech Kaczynski and 95 others in a plane crash on April 10 in Smolensk, Russia, Archbishop Henryk Muszynski of Gniezno, Poland, urged fellow citizens to see the disaster as a “dramatic challenge” to build “a fuller community” at the national level and with neighboring states. • Vatican officials have rebutted allegations that Pope Benedict XVI stalled on a sexual abuse case involving a priest in Oakland, Calif., in 1985 and said critics have fundamentally misunderstood the church procedures in use at the time. • Ecumenism and the challenges facing Christians in the Middle East will be the main focuses of Pope Benedict XVI’s trip to Cyprus from June 4 to 6. • Daniel Sulmasy, a Franciscan brother who is a medical doctor and also holds a doctorate in philosophy, was named to the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues on April 7.