Bishops

The Vatican stood firm Tuesday on a decision to rehabilitate a Holocaust-denying bishop, even as Jewish leaders warned that the move will set back decades of Roman Catholic overtures to mend strained relations between the two faiths. The Vatican joined Jews and fellow Catholics in condemning the British bishop's assertions that no Jews died in Nazi gas chambers.

A sense of new possibilities courses through the crowd even before "the bishop of the poor" shows up in the plaza of this sugar-cane farming center. "I'm not here to hand out beer, liquor, sausages," Fernando Lugo advises, alluding to the traditional giveaways of Paraguayan pols on the stump. "I'm here to share the hope of change with the people." Tiny, landlocked Paraguay, still recovering from the stultifying legacy of the 35-year dictatorship of Gen.

Former Roman Catholic Bishop Fernando Lugo, whose election broke a six-decade legacy of dictatorship and one-party rule, was sworn in Friday as president of this poor, landlocked nation in the heart of South America. "Today a new Paraguay is born," Lugo told thousands of supporters and various heads of state assembled outside the congressional palace in the normally sleepy capital. "Today marks the end of an exclusive Paraguay, a secretive, notoriously corrupt Paraguay."

A national drama that has embarrassed the Roman Catholic Church and roused Cold War memories ended in spectacle Sunday when the new archbishop of Warsaw resigned before his inauguration Mass after admitting that he had collaborated with communist secret police decades ago. The Vatican quickly accepted the resignation of Archbishop Stanislaw Wielgus, who waited until hours before a ceremony in St. John's Cathedral before capitulating to public pressure for him to step down.

Bishop Charles E. Blake, the influential pastor of one of Southern California's largest churches, has been named presiding bishop of his denomination, the Church of God in Christ, based in Memphis, Tenn. Blake, pastor of West Angeles Church of God in Christ in the Crenshaw district, was formally appointed this week to lead the Pentecostal, largely African American denomination, which claims about 6 million members in the United States and abroad.

The Catholic bishop of San Diego is set to testify today in the diocese's bankruptcy case in federal court. It is the kind of public appearance that Bishop Robert H. Brom largely has avoided in his 18 years here. The spiritual leader of a million Catholics in San Diego and Imperial counties has steadfastly kept a low profile, rarely speaking publicly outside of church and even more rarely answering questions.

A powerful Anglican leader from Nigeria installed a bishop to lead the network of conservative U.S. parishes he created, despite a last-minute plea from the archbishop of Canterbury that the Nigerian cancel his visit. Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria was already in the United States when Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams' spokesman revealed that Williams had tried to intercede. The installation ceremony at a nondenominational chapel in Woodbridge, Va.

Less than three weeks after Pope Benedict XVI issued a conciliatory letter to Chinese Roman Catholics, the state-controlled diocese of Beijing has selected a little-known parish priest as its next bishop. The decision offers the first test of the Vatican's new willingness to work with the government on clerical appointments.

The Episcopal Diocese of Chicago included an openly lesbian priest among five nominees for bishop Tuesday, as fellow Anglicans are demanding that the church bar gay bishops. The Rev. Tracey Lind, dean of Trinity Cathedral in Cleveland, who has a female partner, will be on the Nov. 10 ballot. If she wins, she would be the second bishop in the Episcopal Church who lives with a same-sex partner. New Hampshire Bishop V.

A Catholic bishop detained numerous times for his ties to the Vatican has died in police custody, according to a religious news agency and a monitoring group. Han Dingxiang, 70, from Hebei province just south of Beijing, reportedly died Sunday of cancer. A few close relatives were called to the hospital, but contact with fellow church members had been cut off after his most recent detention in September 2005.