News Briefs

Thousands around the world have appealed for the freedom of Meriam Yehya Ibrahim, a pregnant Sudanese woman sentenced to death for “apostasy” because she converted to Christianity when she married a Christan. • “No investigation of a criminal nature is being conducted…involving Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone,” said Federico Lombardi, S.J., the Vatican spokesman, on May 20, responding to a German newspaper report that the retired Vatican secretary of state faced a criminal probe for misappropriating funds. • Adolfo Nicolás, superior general of the Society of Jesus, announced his intention to resign in 2016 after he turns 80 and to convoke a general congregation of the order (the 36th in its 500-year history) to elect his successor. • Glen H. Stassen, a Southern Baptist theologian and ethicist who helped define the social-justice wing of the evangelical movement in the 1980s and was a leader in nuclear disarmament and peacemaking efforts, died on April 25 in Pasadena, Calif. • Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama of Jos, Nigeria, deplored bombings that claimed more than 100 lives in his city on May 20 as setbacks to recent progress on peace. • President Obama on May 14 named Thomas Reese, S.J., one-time editor-in-chief of America, to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.