12:18 pm  |  DALLAS, TEXAS, Mar 11, 2010 (CNA/EWTN News).- The Vatican announced on Thursday that Pope Benedict XVI has appointed two priests in the Diocese of Dallas as auxiliary bishops for the same diocese. In Washington D.C. this morning, papal nuncio Archbishop Pietro Sambi announced Fr. J. Douglas Deshotal and Monsignor Mark J. Seitz as the two who will help shepherd the burgeoning diocese. 

“The appointments are very significant in that they show that the Holy Father is keenly aware of the tremendous growth of the Catholic Church in Texas,” said Bishop Kevin Farrell on Thursday. “I am very grateful to our Holy Father for acknowledging the growth of our Catholic population here in Dallas and for appointing Bishop-elect Deshotel and Bishop-elect Seitz to help me in our ministry to the 1.2 million Catholics in the Diocese of Dallas.”

Bishop-elect Deshotel was born in Basile, Louisiana in 1952 and currently serves as the Vicar General for the Diocese of Dallas. After obtaining his Masters in Divinity degree, he was ordained a priest in 1978.

11:32 am  |  VATICAN CITY, Mar 11, 2010 (CNA/EWTN News).- Participants in this week’s course on the hearing Confessions met with the Holy Father in audience on Thursday morning. To the group of priests, Pope Benedict XVI underlined the importance of guiding their flocks "not to conform itself to this world" and the necessity of opening a “dialogue of salvation” with those who seek forgiveness.

Remembering the Cure of Ars, St. Jean Vianney, as having “exercised heroically and fertilely the ministry of reconciliation,” the Holy Father said that priests can learn “not only an inexhaustible trust in the Sacrament of Penance... but also the method of the ‘dialogue of salvation’ that must be carried out in it.”

The roots of this “heroicism and fecundity,” explained the Holy Father, are found “above all, in an intense personal penitential dimension.”

08:26 am  |  MARQUETTE, MICH., Mar 11, 2010 (CNA/EWTN News).- The Diocese of Marquette is investigating an possible miracle attributed to Servant of God, Bishop Frederic Baraga. The official inquiry will move the cause for Bishop Baraga's canonization forward, which was opened for the prelate in 1952.

In press conference on Wednesday, the current Bishop of Marquette, Alexander K. Sample, announced the recent development, saying, “Since my first days as a seminarian studying for the priesthood, I have had great devotion to Bishop Baraga.”

“As his eleventh successor, I am thrilled at the prospect of a miracle that will advance his cause. With all the priests, deacons, religious and lay faithful of the diocese, I give thanks to God for his, holy, priestly, example,” he added.  

06:49 am  |  KNOXVILLE, TENN., Mar 11, 2010 (CNA).- The recent distribution of Anti-Catholic tracts in a Tennessee town constituted “reprehensible acts of prejudice and hatred” by people who were ignorant of true Catholic teaching, the Bishop of Knoxville has said.

Copies of a Chick Publications tract titled “The Death Cookie” were being distributed in Pigeon Forge, Tenn. by members of Conner Heights Baptist Church. The 1988 cartoon tract claims that the Church was founded by the Devil and that Catholics worship a “wafer god.”

A student upset about the tract discussed it with Fr. Jay Flaherty on March 3, the Diocese of Knoxville said. The priest then contacted the diocesan chancellor, who in turn informed Bishop Richard F. Stika about the material.