Oklahoma diocese marks 20th anniversary of bombing 

THE Bishop of Oklahoma, Dr Edward J. Konieczny, called his diocese to prayer as it marked the 20th anniverssary of the Oklahoma City bombing, on Sunday. "Let us turn our attention to the stories of hope, love, and community that surround that day," he wrote in a pastoral letter. 

Man suspected of planning church attack arrested

FRENCH police have arrested a man suspected of planning an attack on "one or two churches", the BBC reported on Wednesday. The country's Interior Minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, said that the man, an Algerian national who has lived in France for years, was known to security services as having expressed a wish to travel to Syria.

Pakistan province amends rules on blasphemy

ANYONE who is accused of blasphemy or attempts suicide must undergo a mandatory mental-health assessment, a provincial assembly in Pakistan has ruled. The Sindh Assembly also said that if the accused person was found to be suffering from a mental disorder, he or she should be given treatment. The director of CLAAS-UK, Nasir Saeed, welcomed the amendment. 

Court grants South Carolina appeal

ARGUMENTS about the rightful owner of the name and property of the Episcopal Church in South Carolina (News, 13 February) will be heard by the South Carolina Supreme Court, after it granted the Church's appeal last week. Last July, a lower court gave the name and property to the realigned Diocese of South Carolina, a group that is not recognised by the Episcopal Church, in the United States (News, 8 August 2014). 

Prayer in Canada for 'destroyed families'

THE Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Canada, which has addressed the legacy of the Indian residential schools run by the Anglican Church of Canada, will hold its final event on 31 May. The Church is calling for 22 days of prayer up to the National Aboriginal Day of Prayer on 21 June. A website, http://22days.ca, states that the underlying aim of the schools was "to break Indigenous cultures, and to assimilate the children into the bottom rungs of a hierarchical society. Doing that, we . . . drove students and their parents, siblings and children into dysfunction and addiction. Many were also sexually abused." The Church stopped running the schools in 1969, but no apology was issued for 25 years.