NEWS BRIEFS

— Credit card use halted at Vatican

VATICAN CITY - A senior Vatican official says he is “truly surprised” that the Bank of Italy ordered credit card payments suspended in the tiny city-state and insists the Vatican has taken adequate measures to fight money laundering.

The Vatican has been cashonly since Jan. 1 after Italy’s central bank compelled Deutsche Bank Italia to stop providing electronic payment services to the Holy See. That has meant tourists visiting Vatican Museums - they numbered 5 million last year - and the Vatican post office have had to pay cash for tickets and any other transactions.

The Bank of Italy said in a statement this week it had no choice but to order the block because the Vatican has no banking regulatory framework or European Union-recognized alternative for anti-money-laundering purposes.

  • The Associated Press 5 plaintiffs join sex abuse suit

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Five people have joined a Maryland lawsuit that claims a Kentuckybased evangelical church group covered up allegations of sexual abuse against children and failed to alert police and shield children from known sexual predators.

The new plaintiffs join three women who filed a civil lawsuit against Sovereign Grace Ministries in October. The suit accuses church leadership of encouraging parents of alleged victims to refrain from reporting abuses to police and creating “a culture in which sexual predators were protected from accountability and victims were silenced.”

Attorneys are seeking to build a class-action suit against Sovereign Grace Ministries.

  • The Associated PressClass displays are contested

BUFFALO, N.Y. - A schoolteacher is suing her district after being told to remove religious displays from her classroom or risk being fired.

Joelle Silver, a science teacher at Cheektowaga Central High School in a Buffalo suburb, describes herself as a devout Christian.

A federal lawsuit filed Jan.

10 says the district was overtly hostile toward her religion and violated her constitutional rights when it directed Silver last year to remove from her classroom several posters and other displays quoting Bible verses.

Superintendent Dennis Kane said that a student had complained about the material to the Freedom From Religion Foundation, a Madison, Wis.-based watchdog group.

  • The Associated Press Herod exhibit to open in Israel

JERUSALEM - Israel’s national museum plans to open what it calls the world’s first exhibition devoted to the architectural legacy of biblical King Herod, the Jewish proxy monarch who ruled Jerusalem and the Holy Land under Roman occupation two millennia ago.

The display includes the reconstructed tomb and sarcophagus of one of antiquity’s most notable and despised figures, curators say.

About 30 tons of artifacts - including hundreds of tiny shattered shards pieced together - are going on display at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem in a nine-month exhibition opening Feb. 12.

Religion, Pages 12 on 01/19/2013

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