OMAHA, Neb. -- A Vatican official has upheld the 1996 mass excommunication of perhaps hundreds of people in the Lincoln Diocese affiliated with a church reform group and 10 other organizations the diocese considers anti-Catholic.

A Nov. 24 letter to Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz in Lincoln from Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re said Bruskewitz's excommunication decision "was properly taken within your competence as pastor of that diocese."

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/na...ation-headlines