News Briefs

A Romanian appeals court ordered the demolition of a recently completed 18-story office building in Bucharest, built in defiance of various stop-work orders, because of the threat it would pose to its neighbor, the Cathedral of St. Joseph, in the event of an earthquake. • Msgr. Kevin Wallin, 61, a former pastor in Bridgeport, Conn., was indicted, along with four others, on federal drug charges on Jan. 15 for allegedly peddling methamphetamine. • The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops on Jan. 29 filed amicus curiae briefs in the U.S. Supreme Court in support of the federal Defense of Marriage Act and California’s Proposition 8, both of which confirm the definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman. • After four full days of prayer and discussion in Rome, the bishops of the Chaldean Catholic Church elected Archbishop Louis Sako, right, of Kirkuk on Jan. 31 to be the new patriarch of their church, which is based in Iraq. • In his first month on Twitter, Pope Benedict XVI sent two dozen messages in nine languages, generating more than 270,000 responses, 8 percent of which, according to a “sentiment analysis,” were negative.