News Briefs

In a technological and cultural first, Pope Francis joined a Google Hangout, video chatting with young people across five continents, including a student in the gang-infested neighborhood of La Campanera, in San Salvador, on Sept. 4. • The cause for canonization of Archbishop Fulton Sheen has been suspended indefinitely, according to a statement issued on Sept. 3 by the Diocese of Peoria, Ill., where the archbishop was born. • More than 50 representatives from national religious groups, gathered into the Faith Forum for Middle East Policy, wrote to President Obama on Aug. 27 urging alternatives to U.S. military action in Iraq and proposing nonviolent practices to counter conflict situations. • “The federal court rightly declared that Louisiana’s marriage laws ‘serve a central state interest of linking children to an intact family formed by their biological parents,’” Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone of San Francisco, chair of the U.S. bishops’ Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage, said, applauding a decision upholding Louisiana’s marriage amendment on Sept. 3. • Former President Shimon Peres of Israel met with Pope Francis at the Vatican on Sept. 4 to discuss a number of proposals for forming a united front against terrorism, including one to create a “United Religions” organization to combat religious extremism.