NEWS IN BRIEF

Ebola nun AS THE SIXTH ITALIAN nun in Zaire died of the ebola virus this week, pressure was mounting on the Bergamobased missionary order to recall its sisters home. A nurse with training in tropical medicine, Sr Vitarosa Zorza, 51, contracted the killer virus as she tended ebola patients at the hospital at Kikwit, the epicentre of the epidemic, 250 miles from the capital, Kinshasa.
Arinze letter
CARDINAL FRANCIS ARINZE,
the Nigerian Cardinal who is President of the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious dialogue, said in a letter last week to Buddhist leaders that as they mark the anniversary of the Buddha's enlightenment, Christians should join them in reflecting on principles their religions share.
Us vs China 1 A SPOKESWOMAN FOR THE US bishops last week praised a
• House of Representatives vote to prohibit funding to organisations performing overseas 1. abortions, and to cut aid to a UN population fund said to be linked to China's coercive abortion practices.
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Cathedral quakes
A CA l'HI1DRAL IN Los Angeles has been closed for fear that it could collapse in the event of another earthquake. "It would not take much in the way of an aftershock or new seismic occurrence to topple the bell tower," said a building report on St Vihiana's church this week. The 119-year-old cathedral was so badly hit in the January 1994 earthquake that the building is unsafe. Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles already announced last January plans to raze the cathedral, and replace it with a new $45m cathedral complex on the same site.
Vatican library
THE THEFT AND recovery of rare manuscript pages from the Vatican Library earlier this year will not lead to the closing of the library, as had previously been feared, officials confirmed this week in Rome. Fr Leonard Boyle, Vatican Library Prefect, said the theft of three pages from a medieval manuscript once owned by the poet Petrarch, was the first since 1902. "We will not be instituting some new ultrasophisticated security system, however", said Fr Boyle.