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Ten months after his resignation, former Bishop Richard Stika of Knoxville, Tennessee, has sent text messages to priests that one described as “threatening and intimidating.”

Bishop Stika has “contact[ed] whistleblowers directly with threats of a lawsuit, including one who is a key witness in the sexual assault lawsuit,” the Knoxville News Sentinel reported.

Bishop A. Elias Zaidan, chairman of the US bishops’ Committee on International Justice and Peace, has asked Secretary of State Antony Blinken to assist South Sudan’s Christian leaders in fostering peace there, four years after the official end of the South Sudanese Civil War.

“The heads of the member churches of the SSCC [South Sudan Council of Churches] call on their international partners to help the people of South Sudan mediate these dialogue sessions,” Bishop Zaidan wrote on April 19. “The SSCC leaders have no illusions about how difficult this challenge will be, and they will need skilled and experienced expertise to engage in a meaningful and lasting way.”

“Similar to ‘Simon of Cyrene’ who helped Jesus carry his cross, I know the people of South Sudan can count on the United States Government to help the SSCC carry this cross,” Bishop Zaidan added.

The Vatican hopes to renew the secret deal with China concerning the selection of Catholic bishops, Cardinal Pietro Parolin has confirmed.

In an email exchange with LifeSite News regarding the agreement, the Vatican Secretary of State wrote that “we hope to renew it.” The agreement, which has already been renewed twice, will come up for a third renewal later this year.

Although Vatican officials have justified the agreement as a means of ensuring proper leadership for the Church in China, roughly one-third of China’s dioceses do not currently have a bishop.

Asked to comment on the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith’s new document, Dignitas Infinita, Coadjutor Archbishop Christopher Coyne of Hartford, Connecticut, said that “biology is biology. You’re either XX or XY. That’s a scientific fact. You can’t un-prove that fact.”

“You don’t have to pass a test to belong,” he continued. “We walk with each other. We accompany each other. We don’t leave each other; we try to grow together.”

“It doesn’t cost me anything to accept you as you want to present yourself to me,” he added. “I’m not going to get off on my high mighty horse, and all of a sudden say, ‘Well, I won’t accept that.’ I accept you as a person.”

“People who have gender dysphoria can choose to live that out in different ways,” the prelate said. “You could have a biological man who presents himself as a woman, but he’s still biologically a man.”