(  )  Pope Leo has met with an organization of clergy abuse survivors and advocates for the first time.  Participants in the meeting this week say he agreed to maintain a permanent dialogue with them.  The Ending Clergy Abuse group is pushing for a zero-tolerance policy for abuse in the Catholic Church.  Such policy would require the permanent removal of any priest who abuses a child.  A co-founder of the group says that the Pope acknowledged resistance to a universal law but expressed willingness to work with them.  Previous pontiffs had met with individual victims but kept activist organizations at a distance.

(  )  October marks the 200th anniversary of the completion of the Erie Canal, which helped transform the U.S. economy.  But historians are pointing out that the waterway also had an impact on the nation’s spiritual condition.  The Erie Canal helped religious movements spread to rural areas, including the Second Great Awakening:  a nationwide movement of Christian evangelism and social reform.  Though the movement began at the turn of the century, it flourished in the hinterlands along the Erie Canal.  Revivalists such as Charles Grandison Finney — America’s most famous preacher at the time — used the canal extensively.

(  )  More than three-quarters of Americans — 77 percent — believe gun detection technology should be deployed in schools, workplaces, and even houses of worship.  That’s according to a new poll of thousands of adults released by Propeller Insights.  Respondents express overwhelming support for integrating gun detection devices into existing video surveillance systems as part of comprehensive safety measures.  The survey follows a rash of attacks on houses of worship in this country, including the deadly shooting at the Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis in August that cost the lives of two children and wounded dozens more.