Fr Roly Candelario Piña Camacho Mexican priest hospitalised after being shot four times
A Mexican priest who had been kidnapped is in hospital in serious condition after having been discovered on the side of a highway with four gunshot wounds.
Fr Roly Candelario Piña Camacho, a Piarist priest from the Diocese of Tlaxcala, was found wounded on the side of the México-Puebla federal highway last week, the diocese said.
Local media reports did not specify when the priest was kidnapped, but said his family members paid the unspecified ransom request to his captors. He had suffered four gunshot wounds and was transported to a local hospital, where the National Guard is offering protection against further violence, according to reports.
In a January 7 statement, the Diocese of Tlaxcala said that the priest is “in serious condition”.
CNN reaches deal with Catholic student in viral video
CNN has reached an undisclosed settlement with Nick Sandmann, a Kentucky Catholic high school student who sued the cable news outlet for defamation over its coverage of an incident that occurred after last year’s March for Life.
Sandmann, a junior last year who was at the centre of the viral video controversy, sought $275m (€247m) in damages in his lawsuit filed against CNN last March.
The amount of the CNN settlement was not made public during a hearing at the federal courthouse in Covington, Kentucky.
After the announcement, Sandmann tweeted: “Yes, we settled with CNN,” which gained more than 82,000 likes by the next day and hundreds of comments, primarily of support.
Swiss prisoner appeals for euthanasia after request denied
A Swiss prisoner is challenging the country’s policy to bar inmates from receiving assisted suicide after his request to die was denied. Peter Vogt, 69, is serving the equivalent of a life sentence after being convicted of multiple rapes, including of a child. He requested assisted suicide due to kidney and heart problems, as well as the mental anguish of being unable to travel to see his mother. Vogt is described as having “several psychological disorders”.
Although he was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment in 1996, a 2004 Swiss law allows for prisoners with “established sexual delinquencies” to be held in prison indefinitely. Vogt is still considered to be a threat to the public and there are no plans to release him from prison.
US church vandalised with black spray paint, satanic symbols
The beginning of January saw the property of a Catholic church in Louisiana vandalised with black spray paint, including symbols of a satanic nature. The graffiti was found on a statue, Marian grotto, and prayer altar outside of St Theresa of the Child Jesus Catholic Church in Abbeville.
One of the vandalised objects was a 70-year-old statue of St Therese of Lisieux. The symbols spray-painted on the statue included an upside-down cross and the word ‘satan’.
Puerto Ricans living in fear after string of earthquakes
At least one person has died and one Catholic church was destroyed by the latest of a series of earthquakes to rock Puerto Rico.
A magnitude 6.4 quake shook people awake at 4.24am local time on January 7, less than 24 hours after a magnitude 5.8 temblor shook the island in the predawn hours of January 6.
Aftershocks ranging in magnitude from 3.8 to 6 were felt throughout the island following the early morning temblor, reported the US Geological Survey.
The continuous shaking has taken a psychological toll, said Fr Enrique Camacho, executive director of Caritas of Puerto Rico, which is affiliated with Catholic Charities USA.
“What we fear is that we continue having these earthquakes. If we have bigger ones, the damage is going to be very, very, very bad,” he said.