STATE
ERIE — Pope Benedict XVI has picked a canon lawyer in the Greensburg diocese to succeed retiring Erie Bishop Donald Trautman.
Monsignor Lawrence Persico is the vicar general, meaning he's second only to Greensburg Bishop Lawrence Brandt in heading the four-county diocese east of Pittsburgh.
Trautman, who is now 76, sent his mandatory letter of resignation when he turned 75 last year but has continued to lead about 220,000 Roman Catholics in the 13-county Erie diocese.
Persico, 61, was ordained in 1977 and has served as a canon lawyer under Brandt and two previous Greensburg bishops, William Connare and Anthony Bosco. It was not clear when Persico will be installed.
LANCASTER — The attorney for a youth pastor who staged a youth group kidnapping says his client will fight charges for blindfolding the teens, binding their wrists and transporting them by cargo van to a dingy basement where they overheard mock torture.Andrew Jordan's attorney says there's no evidence anyone hurt the girl whose complaint led to charges of assault and false imprisonment against the Glad Tidings Assembly of God youth pastor.Church officials say Jordan staged the March exercise as a lesson in religious persecution.
FORT INDIANTOWN GAP — A World War II-era mortar round found on a property adjacent to a central Pennsylvania military base was found to be inert after a police bomb squad cordoned off the area for more than an hour.A teen-ager working in the family's Lebanon County yard discovered the mortar Monday.His parents called police, who used X-rays to determine it was just a training round.
