Pope Tells U.S. Bishops to Clean Up Seminaries

REUTERS, May 7 — Pope John Paul II on May 6 told U.S. bishops in Rome for their once-every-five-years ad limina visit to get seminaries in order so future priests will live by Church teachings.

Twenty bishops from Michigan and Ohio were visiting the Pope. “As a spiritual father and brother to his priests, the bishop should do everything in his power to encourage them in fidelity to their vocation and to the demands of leading a life worthy of the calling they have received,” John Paul told them.

The Holy Father also said the bishops must keep up dialogue with seminarians and priests and correct them if needed, Reuters reported. Candidates to the priesthood have to accept a “life of celibate chastity as the expression of a radical commitment to follow Christ,” the Holy Father said.

“It is in major and minor seminaries,” he said, “that the seeds of a spirituality of communion and mission, and of a healthy priesthood, are sown.”

Swiss Guards to Celebrate 500th Anniversary

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, May 9 — The Vatican's Swiss Guards are getting ready to celebrate their 500th anniversary as protectors of the Pope with several celebrations in 2005 and 2006.

The guards announced their plans in early May. Anniversary celebrations will begin June 21, 2005, with the publication of a book on the history of the Swiss Guards, the wire service reported.

Part of the celebrations will include a 530-mile march from Switzerland to Rome to recreate the arrival of the first contingent. The march is expected to take about a month, and the guards will make 26 stops to mark Switzerland's 26 cantons.

Other plans for the anniversary include issuance of a special stamp by the Swiss and Vatican post offices as well as a coin worth about $15.

The Swiss Guards were founded in 1506 by Pope Julius II. Currently 110 guards protect the Pope, guard the entrances to the Vatican and the Apostolic Palace, and perform honor-guard duties at Vatican ceremonies.

Police Reopen Vatican Kidnapping Case

THE LONDON TIMES, May 8 — Italian police are reopening the investigation of the kidnapping of the daughter of a Vatican employee 21 years ago after a photographer thought she saw the kidnapped woman among the crowds in recent a photo of St. Peter's Square.

Emanuela Orlandi disappeared June 22, 1983, and was thought to have been taken by Turkish extremists with links to the KGB. It was suspected they wanted to exchange her for Mehmet Ali Agca, the Turkish gunman who shot Pope John Paul II on May 13, 1981, the newspaper reported.

The Holy Father appealed for the girl's release eight times, but she was never found and police believed she was either dead or had married one of her Turkish captors.

Police said aged photographs of the teen-ager bear a “startling resemblance” to Orlandi, the newspaper reported. Orlandi's mother, however, said she didn't believe the woman in the new photograph was her daughter.