News In Brief

New N.Y. Archbishop vows to fight against abortion

Bishop John O'Connor was appointed archbishop of New York Tuesday. He said fighting abortion will be one of his top priorities. Bishop O'Connor, the bishop of Scranton, Pa., will succeed the late Terence Cardinal Cooke as head of the nation's fourth-largest Roman Catholic diocese, with 1.8 million members.

Bishop O'Connor is best known as one of the five members on the US bishops' committee that drafted a controversial pastoral letter on issues of war and peace last May.

Many Vatican officials consider New York the most important archdiocese in the US.