WASHINGTON --- Ten U.S. bishops have been selected by the Vatican's Pontifical Council for the Laity to lead catechetical sessions at the 20th World Youth Day, Aug. 16-21 in Cologne. The bishops include Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles; Auxiliary Bishop Jaime Soto of Orange; Cardinal Francis George of Chicago; Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington; Archbishop Timothy Dolan of Milwaukee; Archbishop Stefan Soroka of Philadelphia for Ukrainians; Bishop Leonard Blair of Toledo, Ohio; Bishop Blase Cupich of Rapid City, South Dakota; and Bishop William Murphy of Rockville Centre, N.Y.

Cardinal J. Francis Stafford, head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, the Vatican office which addresses censures reserved to the Holy See, and former head of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, which organizes World Youth Days, also is among the catechists. Cardinal Stafford was archbishop of Denver when it hosted World Youth Day in 1993.

The catechetical sessions are arranged by language groups and can vary in size from a few hundred to over 15,000 participants. They include a presentation by a bishop, interaction between the bishop and the youth, music and liturgy. Among bishops slated to address groups from the U.S. are Cardinal George Pell (Australia), Cardinal Francis Arinze (Vatican and Nigeria), Cardinal Wilfrid Napier (South Africa) and Bishop Terrence Prendergast (Canada).

Pope's brother released from hospital
after receiving pacemaker

ROME (CNS) --- Pope Benedict's older brother, Msgr. Georg Ratzinger, was released from Rome's Gemelli hospital Aug. 6, three days after receiving a pacemaker and the morning after a visit from his brother. Msgr. Ratzinger, 81, was taken to the hospital Aug. 3 with an irregular heartbeat. He had been staying with the pope at the papal summer villa in Castel Gandolfo, south of Rome. Doctors inserted the pacemaker that same evening. Pope Benedict left Castel Gandolfo in an Italian air force helicopter at 5 p.m. Aug. 5 and landed at the hospital helipad about 15 minutes later. Alerted by the erection of security barricades and an increased police presence, about 50 patients and their visitors, as well as journalists and photographers, were on hand when the pope entered the hospital. Pope Benedict spent about 20 minutes upstairs with his brother.

Pro-life directors, state Catholic conference
heads meet in Phoenix

PHOENIX (CNS) --- More than 100 diocesan pro-life directors and state Catholic conference directors met in Phoenix Aug. 4-6 to confer on issues such as human cloning, emergency contraception and the death penalty. The conference gave directors a chance to hear doctors, lawyers, authors, priests and even politicians weigh in on life issues and an opportunity to share ideas with one another on how to approach these ideas and educate people in their respective dioceses about them. It was the first time capital punishment was included as a topic at the annual conference. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops kicked off its Catholic Campaign to End the Use of the Death Penalty in March. The campaign comes on the 25th anniversary of the first comprehensive USCCB statement opposing capital punishment. Representing the USCCB on the issue was Andrew Rivas, policy adviser in the conference's Office of Domestic Social Development. Rivas noted several polls show that the death penalty is losing favor with Catholics.

Missionaries of Charity open mission in Sacramento

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (CNS) --- Blessed Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity are opening a mission in the Diocese of Sacramento. Sister Nirmala Joshi, head of the Missionaries of Charity, has agreed to have four members of her order live in the former rectory at St. Peter Church in south Sacramento and work with the area's poor. The nuns, who were officially welcomed to the diocese at a Mass celebrated earlier this summer by Auxiliary Bishop Richard J. Garcia at St. Peter Church, are coming from the order's mission in San Francisco. The four nuns who will live in Sacramento are Sister Damascene, who is originally from India; Sister Jose Clare, a native of Kenya; Sister Christopher, a native of Colombia; and Sister Paulinetta, a native of Bangladesh.

German youths upset that Filipinos
denied visas for World Youth Day

COLOGNE, Germany (CNS) --- Several young German Catholics said they are too disappointed to go to World Youth Day activities in Cologne after Filipino youths they sponsored did not get visas. The four Filipinos they had invited to attend the Days in the Diocese ahead of the Aug. 16-21 World Youth Day activities were refused visas by the German Embassy in Manila, Philippines. Britta Buker, 19, of St. Mary's Church in Waltrop, Germany, said parishioners were shocked over the refusal. "We are very astonished. We were looking forward to their coming, and now one day before they should arrive, they're not able to come," she said. Buker and some of the other young people have decided they are giving up on World Youth Day. "I wanted to go there with the Filipinos," she said, "but if they don't come, I don't have any real reason to go anymore."

Kansas-born bishop who served in
Papua New Guinea dies at 86

HAYS, Kan. (CNS) --- Kansas-born Bishop Firmin Martin Schmidt, the first bishop of Mendi in Papua New Guinea's Southern Highlands province, died in Hays Aug. 4 at the age of 86. Since his retirement in 1995, Bishop Schmidt, a Capuchin, lived at St. Joseph Capuchin Friary in Hays and St. John's Rest Home in Victoria, Kan., according to a statement from the Capuchin Province of Mid-America in St. Louis. In 1959 Bishop Schmidt was appointed apostolic prefect of Mendi. He attended the second, third and fourth sessions of the Second Vatican Council. He was ordained a bishop in 1965, just after the close of the council, and served in the Diocese of Mendi until his retirement. During his ministry in Papua New Guinea, the Catholic population of Southern Highlands grew from one person baptized to more than 72,000 Catholics and was growing by about 2,500 a year.