NEWS IN BRIEF

MGR WILLIAM Mitchell, rector of the Beda College, Rome and a priest of Clifton diocese, has suffered a slight stroke. He is making very good progress in a Bristol hospital.
CAFOD has given £25,000 to Caritas Algiers and a further £5,000 through the British Red Cross towards relief for earthquake victims in El Asnam, Algeria, Christian Aid have sent four tons of emergency drugs, funded from an initial grant of £25,000 made by Christian Aid in response to a Worldwide appeal by the World Council Churches for $500,000. Further airlifts of emergency supplies included blankets, tents and medical equipment.
A PROPOSAL to end the obligation to attend Mass on several (S holy days including the Feast of the Assumption has been withdrawn — at least for now — by a committee of American bishops. The decision to withdraw the proposal came despite the support for a change in holy days by two-thirds of the bishops who responded to a holy days survey.
POPE John Paul II will beatify three Italians in ceremonies on October 26 In St Peter's Basilica, Vatican Radio said last week. The three are Bartolo Longo, a southern Italian lawyer who founded an order of nuns in the late 19th century; Fr Luigi Orion, founder of the Little Society of Divine Providence; and Sister Maria Anna Slaa of the Marcelline Sisters, who died in 1891.
THE ANNOUNCEMENT that the Nobel prize for Literature had been won by Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz, was greeted by the Pope as "a beautiful surprise", Vatican sources said last week. They said the Pope has enjoyed Milosz's poetry for a long time and considered it to he rich in spiritual values.