Sudanese government authorities demolished the Church of Christ in Thiba Al Hamyida in North Khartoum on June 30 after giving the church’s leaders just 24 hours notice, evidence of increasing pressure in Sudan against minority Christians. · Six years after reaching a $10 million settlement with victims of sexual abuse, the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph has been ordered to pay an additional $1.1 million for violating terms of the 2008 settlement. · On June 30 the Nigerian military announced the arrest of a key figure in the April abduction of more than 200 girls from a school in Chibok, Southern Borno State, and the disruption of a Boko Haram Islamist cell. · The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines on July 2 reiterated its moral opposition to restoring the nation’s death penalty. · Pope Francis dispatched a team of Vatican investigators to Paraguay to look into the activities of the Rev. Carlos Urrutigoity, an Argentina-born priest accused more than a decade ago of sexual abuse in Scranton, Pa. · In a decision on June 26, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that 35-foot buffer zones around abortion clinics—meant to keep demonstrators away—violates First Amendment rights.
