News Briefs

On Aug. 29 Catholic Charities USA created a special Hurricane Isaac Fund to help fund its immediate and long-term response to widespread damage left behind by the storm. • Benedict Groeschel, C.F.R., a well-known Catholic author and television personality, has given up his longtime spot on the cable network EWTN after making comments that seemed to excuse some priest pedophiles as “seduced” by teens; he later apologized. • South Africa’s Archbishop Desmond Tutu refused to share a platform during a conference in Johannesburg with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and suggested that Blair and former U.S. President George W. Bush should be tried for war crimes related to the invasion of Iraq. • The freshmen class at Chicago’s St. Patrick’s High School is the first in the archdiocese to use iPads during daily instruction in a move to replace textbooks for the entire student body by 2014. • New York’s Archbishop Timothy Dolan offered the benediction at both major party conventions this year, and Sister Simone Campbell, executive director of Network, said during an address at the Democratic Party convention in Charlotte, N.C., on Sept. 5 that U.S. nuns “agree with our bishops” in criticizing Republican budget proposals.