Morning Catholic must-reads: 31/07/12

There are fears that violence in Syria will force the Pope Benedict to cancel his September trip to Lebanon, Rome Reports has said (video).

Two foreigners who survived the crash that killed Cuban Catholic dissident Oswaldo Payá have rejected claims that their car was forced off the road.

The Vatican has ordered Slovenian Archbishop Alojz Uran to withdraw from public life because of rumours that he fathered two children, Vatican Insider has claimed.

Archbishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller, the new prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, says in a new book on the Pope’s Regensburg lecture that relativism “inevitably results in intolerance of God“.

Cardinal Francis George of Chicago criticises the city’s mayor, Rahm Emanuel, for claiming that a restaurant chain’s values “are not Chicago values” because the company’s president opposes same-sex marriage.

Tom Hoopes picks out the committed Catholics taking part in the London 2012 Games.

John Connelly profiles the Jewish converts to Catholicism who helped to shape Vatican II.

Fr Robert Barron suggests that Woody Allen is emerging as “a defender of what can only be called traditional morality”.

And Jeffrey Miller, the Curt Jester, introduces a new Sunday pastime: Mass roulette.

For updates throughout the day follow me on Twitter @lukecoppen