"This transparency and objectivity I promise you will include a thorough review of our safe environment policies and procedures by an outside investigator," Bishop Conley said.

Archbishop Gregory said Catholics are specifically "enraged" about allegations of abuse by Archbishop Theodore E. McCarrick and find "any pastoral negligence in protecting our people is similarly grievous."

The letter also requested that health plans which include abortion notify consumers of that fact at the time of enrollment to prevent consumers from buying such plans if they who do not wish to.

Officials said most of the casualties were caused by falling rubble as buildings collapsed. There were no reported foreigners among the dead, but some media reports claimed several fatalities in the neighboring Gili Islands.

On July 5, the Nicaraguan police, with masked and armed paramilitary support, attacked Sutiaba. The "clean-up operation," as the government called it, resulted in three dead among the parishioners of Father Morales' St. Peter Church.

"I continue to be deeply concerned about the victims and the ongoing pain and suffering they endure," Bishop Zubik said in the letter, read at all Masses.

Reynold Verret, president of Xavier University of Louisiana, announced July 31 that the university and its Institute for Black Catholic Studies will become the new hub for the advancement of sainthood causes of African-American Catholics.

Security forces were placed on full alert in the southern Philippine region of Mindanao following a deadly suicide bomb blast in Basilan province that killed 10 people.

The pope met Aug. 1 with about two dozen European Jesuits currently involved in the order's formation process. They had been talking about communication and one asked Pope Francis how they can meaningfully communicate with unemployed young people when, as Jesuits, they will never know what it means to be without a job.

The accusations against Archbishop McCarrick, a former cardinal and retired archbishop of Washington, "reveal a grievous moral failure within the church," said Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo of Galveston-Houston.