Church of the Transfiguration

A former Catholic priest who fled from Arizona to Italy in 2003 after being indicted on child molestation charges has been returned to the state.

As the U.S. Catholic bishops met in Baltimore to discuss new mechanisms to hold themselves accountable on sex abuse, the Southern Baptist Convention was wrestling with the same vexing issue at its annual meeting June 11-12 in Birmingham, Alabama.

The Mexican bishops' conference issued a plea for peace and Cardinal Carlos Aguiar Retes asked priests to celebrate Masses "for all the victims of violence in the country" after a pair of kidnappings and killings in the national capital provoked outrage and worsened perceptions of insecurity.

A 34-year-old sacristan is in the custody of Salvadoran authorities in connection with the May killing of a Salvadoran priest.

While the sex abuse crisis consumed the June meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Baltimore, prelates who work on the border, such as Bishop Daniel E. Flores of Brownsville, Texas, have been facing a different crisis also involving children.