Catholic Leaders Praise Children’s Health Care Vote

WASHINGTON – Thanking the Senate and House for their approval of legislation reauthorizing and expanding the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, known as SCHIP, the heads of the Catholic Health Association and Catholic Charities said they hoped partisanship could be set aside to get a final bill to President George W. Bush quickly.

“The time for partisan bickering is over – it is now time for united support on behalf of children’s health coverage and a more solid foundation for our nation’s future,” said Sister Carol Keehan, a Daughter of Charity who is CHA president and CEO.

“We applaud the Democrats, Republicans and independents in Congress who have come together to support and strengthen this program,” said Father Larry Snyder, president of Catholic Charities USA.

The House voted 225-204 late Aug. 1 in favor of the Children’s Health and Medicare Protection Act, known as CHAMP, which would provide health insurance for at least three million children currently uninsured and reauthorize funding for the more than five million children already covered by SCHIP.

The program is due to expire Sept. 30.

The Senate approved a different version of the legislation by a 68-31 vote Aug. 2.

Venezuelan Student Seeks Refuge in Vatican Nunciature

CARACAS, Venezuela – Venezuelan university students have demonstrated in support of a student leader who has sought refuge at the Vatican nunciature in Caracas.

The anti-government students were demonstrating in support of the request of Nixon Moreno, the student leader, to be granted political asylum or humanitarian refuge.

Moreno, an undergraduate at the University of the Andes in Merida and a fervent opponent of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, has been staying at the nunciature since mid-March.

Last year, a Moreno-led protest turned violent when several police officers were injured and protesters allegedly sexually accosted a policewoman.
Moreno was charged with “lascivious acts” against the policewoman and attempted murder of another police officer, as well as injuries to several officers. He is also charged with rebellion.

The students were protesting a court’s decision to suspend student elections.
Venezuela’s major public universities are dominated by anti-government sentiment, and many claim that the government is attempting to weaken the universities’ traditional autonomy.

Hong Kong Revises Papal Letter to Chinese Catholics

HONG KONG – The Hong Kong Diocese has revised the Vatican’s Chinese translation of Pope Benedict XVI’s letter to Catholics in China.

Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun of Hong Kong said that the original Chinese text contains many mistakes and that the revision was to “help those (Chinese) who don’t know foreign languages understand the letter’s original intentions.”

The cardinal, who presided over sessions at three parishes in mid-July to explain the papal letter’s content and context, spent a week revising the Chinese translation with experts.

The revised text, which contains 20,086 characters including footnotes, was published in the July 15 issue of Kung Kao Po, the diocesan Chinese weekly.

In addition, 30,000 booklets of the revised text in traditional Chinese characters and another 30,000 in simplified characters were printed for free distribution.

Chinese Priests’ Arrest Part Of Government Crackdown

ROME – The late July arrest of three Catholic priests in China’s Inner Mongolia region is part of a crackdown in several areas of the country against priests who are not part of the government-recognized Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, said a Rome-based news agency.

AsiaNews, an agency sponsored by the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions, said that at least 11 priests under arrest are experiencing harsher treatment since the publication June 30 of Pope Benedict XVI’s letter to Chinese Catholics.

While showing a willingness to discuss church-state relations with the Chinese government, the pope’s letter also insisted that Catholics should have full religious freedom, including the freedom to maintain normal contacts with the pope and the Vatican.

AsiaNews said its sources in China described as “a government answer to the pope’s letter” the July 24 arrest of three priests in the Ximeng region of Inner Mongolia.

Bulgarian Implicated in Plot To Kill Pope Is Dead at 58

SOFIA, Bulgaria – Sergei Antonov, accused by Pope John Paul II’s would-be assassin of being part of a Soviet-bloc plot to kill the pope in 1981, was found dead in his Sofia apartment.

Bulgarian police confirmed the death of the 58-year-old Antonov Aug. 1, but said his death had occurred several days earlier. He apparently died of natural causes.
Antonov was deputy manager of the Bulgarian state airline’s Rome office in the early 1980s.

Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turk captured in St. Peter’s Square moments after shooting the pope and convicted of attempted murder for the crime, had told Italian investigators that Antonov and two employees of the Bulgarian Embassy in Rome were involved in the shooting.

He said the Bulgarians were acting on instructions from the Soviet secret police.
Antonov was arrested, but an Italian court ruled in 1986 that there was not enough evidence to convict the Bulgarians.

Pope: Too Much Wealth Can Compromise One’s Salvation

CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy – Too much wealth and greed could “seriously compromise” one’s salvation, Pope Benedict XVI said, adding that the real treasure humanity should strive for is Christ.

It is a thing of “wisdom and virtue to not set one’s heart on the things of this world, because everything passes, everything can suddenly come to an end,” he said before reciting the Angelus prayer Aug. 5.

While one’s earthly possessions and material wealth can be a necessity that are good in and of themselves, they are “not to be considered an absolute good,” he told those gathered in the courtyard of the papal summer residence south of Rome.

Wealth “does not ensure salvation, rather it could even seriously compromise it,” he said.

Christ, the pope said, warned people to guard against greed and becoming attached to earthly possessions.

“The true treasure we Christians have to tirelessly seek out lies in ‘what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God’,” he said, quoting a Bible passage from Paul's Letter to the Colossians.

Pope to Visit Holocaust Memorial, Marian Shrine

VATICAN CITY – During his visit to Austria, Pope Benedict XVI plans to stop at a Holocaust memorial in Vienna and to celebrate the 850th anniversary of Austria’s most important Marian shrine in Mariazell.

The pope’s Sept. 7-9 visit to Austria will be the seventh foreign trip of his pontificate.

After his arrival in Vienna, the pope will pray at a 17th-century monument marking a victory of the Catholic Habsburgs during the Thirty Years’ War and stop at a Holocaust memorial in Jews’ Square.

He will meet the country’s president and diplomats in the Hofburg Palace.
Pope Benedict will celebrate Mass Sept. 8 outside the basilica of the Shrine of Our Lady of Mariazell, 80 miles southwest of Vienna, and lunch with Austria’s bishops.

He will hold an evening prayer service with priests, deacons and members of religious orders.

The pope will lead a procession in Vienna Sept. 9 and celebrate Mass in the city’s St. Stephen’s Cathedral, after which he will recite the Angelus prayer in the square outside the cathedral.

He will visit the 12th-century Cistercian Abbey of the Holy Cross outside Vienna and meet with volunteers before returning to Rome.

GALLUP, N.M. – Bishop Donald E. Pelotte of Gallup was moved out of intensive care at a Phoenix hospital, where he is being treated for injuries he said he sustained in a fall at his home.

The diocese said no new information was available other than that the bishop was now in a private room at John C. Lincoln North Mountain Hospital.

Bishop Pelotte, 62, was discovered injured at his home July 23, when a member of the diocesan staff went to check on him after the bishop did not keep scheduled meetings that day or answer the phone.

After an evaluation at Rehoboth McKinley Christian Hospital in Gallup, the bishop was airlifted to the Phoenix hospital, which has a level 1 trauma center.

A July 30 article in the Gallup Independent newspaper noted that police were called to the hospital to investigate “a possible battery to a person,” after the extent of the bishop’s injuries raised questions about whether he might have been assaulted.

The Gallup police report cited injuries including bruising around the eyes and on one shoulder, as well as on his legs, arms, elbows, hands and knuckles.
Bishop Pelotte assured police that he had fallen on the stairs at his home and made his way back to his bedroom.