Leadership Network asks group to change name

Dallas — The Dallas-based Leadership Network, which works with clergy and congregations to develop more effective ministries, is demanding that the newly formed Clergy Leadership Network of Washington, D.C., change its name.

The Dallas nonprofit foundation, started in 1985, provides information and workshops for large evangelical and “mainline” Protestant congregations that emphasize innovation.

The new Washington organization wants to enlist liberal Christian, Jewish and Muslim clergy in partisan politics to oppose Bush Administration policies and conservative religion activists. The Dallas group’s lawyer wrote the Washington group that its chosen name “constitutes infringement of a federally registered trademark and unfair competition.”

Missing bishop surfaces, report says

Shanghai, China — A Roman Catholic bishop in China who had been missing for six years was hospitalized under police guard, a U.S.-based monitoring group reported. The church is illegal in China.

Su Zhimin, recognized by the Vatican as bishop of Baoding, was taken to that northern city’s Central Hospital around Nov. 15 for an eye operation and treatment of a heart ailment, the Cardinal Kung Foundation said.

Su, believed to be 71, was guarded by 20 plainclothes police officers and not formally registered as a patient, the U.S. group said. It was not known whether he remained hospitalized.