Extracts - R.T.S. (Courtesy of the Catholic Times)

VATICAN CITY: More than five years after the murder of Bishop Luigi Padovese, Pope Francis has named an Italian Jesuit to succeed him as apostolic vicar of Anatolia, Turkey. The Pope�s nomination of Fr. Paolo Bizzeti, 67, to be a bishop and apostolic vicar of the Church jurisdiction on Turkey�s eastern Mediterranean coast was announced last week. Bishop Padovese was stabbed and practically decapitated on 3rd June, 2010, in Iskenderun, the city where the apostolic vicariate is based. His driver, a young man who reportedly had mental problems, was convicted of his murder in 2013. Bishop-designate Bizzeti, a native of Florence who was ordained to the priesthood in 1975, has been directing a centre for the formation of lay Catholics in Padua since 2007. He is founder of an Italian association called Friends of the Middle East. In a statement released by the Italian Jesuits, Bishop-designate Bizzeti said he had asked his superiors to send him to Turkey in 1984, �but the time was not right�. In the 30 years since, he said, he has continued to study Ephesus, Tarsus and other Turkish cities associated with the New Testament, to visit the Christian communities there and to accompany pilgrims.

VATICAN CITY: By downloading an app for a smart-phone or tablet, members of the public can chat with others about famous works of art in the Vatican Museums, share strategies for dealing with the crowds and choose a work to help restore. Patrum, the new app from the Patrons of the Arts in the Vatican Museums, launched last week. Part social network and part crowd-sourcing, the app lets museum fans communicate with each other and make donations online. The app includes short feature stories about people who work in the museums or who are members of the Patrons; it provides tips for tourists; and it explains some of the art and architecture at the Vatican, both well-known and often overlooked. With a little tap on a bright red button, users also can choose to donate to a specific project.

LIMA: A leading Peruvian newspaper says it will no longer publish columns by Cardinal Luis Cipriani after he was caught plagiarising two popes. The unattributed texts were found last week in two columns that El Comercio published, one earlier this month and the other in May. They were discovered by reporters at the news website Utero.pe, which determined that the cardinal had lifted texts from Paul VI and Benedict XVI. El Comercio ratified the findings, saying on its website that Cardinal Cipriani had penned his last column for the paper. It deleted the two columns from its web-site. The 71-year-old cardinal apologised on a radio programme and asked listeners to �pray that we pastors are always true to the teachings of the Church�.

SANTA FE: The Catholic bishops of New Mexico, in a joint statement welcomed a ruling by the state�s Court of Appeals that reversed a lower court�s approval of physician assisted suicide. �The Catholic Church strongly believes that life is a gift from a loving God, which extends from conception to natural death,� they said. �Only God can give or take life and the state does not have the competency to shorten this precious gift, even for seemingly laudable purposes.�