News Briefs

We are people of hope,” said the U.S. Catholic bishops in a statement on Sept. 29 supporting the faltering Middle East peace negotiations and calling for “active, fair and firm U.S. leadership to advance comprehensive peace in the Middle East.” • The U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, Miguel H. Díaz, said on Oct. 5 that human migration should be accepted as both a Christian duty to “uphold the value of unity in diversity” and as a political duty to “safeguard human rights.” • The chairman of the U.S. Bishops’ Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, Bishop William Murphy of Rockville Centre, N.Y., urged Congress on Sept. 20 to give priority attention to working poor families as it debates tax policy. • Nigerian officials investigating human trafficking concluded that thousands of Nigerian girls were being forced to work in brothels after being lured to mining communities in Mali with offers of work in Europe. • Two Creighton University theologians, Michael Lawler and Todd Salzman, were rebuked on Sept. 15 by the Committee on Doctrine of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for defending the moral legitimacy of homosexuality, contraception and premarital sex.