Abducted Indian priest rescued in Yemen after 18 months

An Indian Catholic priest who was kidnapped by militants from a home for senior citizens in Yemen has been rescued after 18 months, an Indian official said Tuesday.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said on Twitter that Tom Uzhunnalil had been rescued, saying later Tuesday that he had reached Vatican City. He is expected to meet Pope Francis. Swaraj gave no other details.

Uzhunnalil had worked for more than four years as a chaplain at the home in Aden in southern Yemen established by Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity.

Cardinal at center of Ireland's clergy abuse scandals dies

Cardinal Desmond Connell, whose tenure as Dublin's Roman Catholic archbishop was dominated by revelations of pedophilia in the priesthood, has died at the age of 90.

The Dublin Archdiocese said Connell died Tuesday in his sleep after a long illness. He oversaw the archdiocese from 1988 to 2004 and was elevated to cardinal in 2001.

Connell, who spent 35 years as a University College Dublin theologian before his appointment, said in 2002 that the child abuse scandals then sweeping through the Catholic Church in Ireland had devastated his time in office.