News Briefs

An ad reportedly profiling Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow's mother Pam and her decision against medical advice not to abort him is scheduled to air on CBS during the network's broadcast of the Feb. 7 Super Bowl. • Britain's House of Lords rejected government proposals that the Catholic bishops said could have forced the church to accept women, sexually active gays and transsexuals into the priesthood, voting 216-178 on Jan. 25 in favor of an Equality Bill amendment to protect the existing rights of churches to insist that clergy and high-profile lay employees live consistent with Christian moral teaching. • Results from studies on the remains of a first-century shroud discovered on the edge of the Old City of Jerusalem prove that the famous Shroud of Turin could not have originated from Jerusalem of Jesus' time, said a prominent archaeologist. • Profits from the sale of a Vatican stamp commemorating the Shrine of Our Lady of Grace in Mentorella, Italy, expected to be more than $210,000, will be donated to the people of Haiti. • More than 25 years after the Vatican approved opening the sainthood cause of 16th-century Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci, the diocese of his birth formally reopened his case, Bishop Claudio Giuliodori of Macerata announced during a Mass on Jan. 24 in the Macerata cathedral. • In a Jan. 23 message embracing the evangelizing potential of digital media, Pope Benedict XVI asked priests around the world to use Web sites, videos and blogs as tools of pastoral ministry.