Parishioners in the Archdiocese of Ottawa, Ontario, have been asked to contribute one day’s pay for a special collection to offset the costs of hosting some 25,000 young people prior to the start of the July World Youth Day. A special collection in Ottawa will help pay for the Days in the Diocese program July 18-22. World Youth Day opens July 23 in Toronto. About 10,000 young people from the Ottawa archdiocese are expected to welcome visitors to Ottawa, then join them in traveling to Toronto for World Youth Day. The cost is expected to be between $1 million and $2 million, said Ottawa’s Archbishop Marcel Gervais.

In his 2002 Lenten message, Pope John Paul II said that "as believers, we must be open to a life marked by gratuitousness, by the giving of ourselves unreservedly to God and neighbor." The Matthew 10:8 theme of his message is "You received without paying, give without pay." The pope said the more needy people are, "the more urgent the believer’s duty to serve them." He asked, "Does not God permit human need so that by responding to the needs of others we may learn to free ourselves from our egoism and to practice authentic Gospel love?" The pope said the Christian’s response to others’ needs "is never merely material assistance. It is always a proclamation of the kingdom as well."

An expansion of health coverage to unborn children was announced January 31 by U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson. Under the plan, states could provide prenatal care by classifying the developing fetus of a low-income woman as an unborn child eligible for the children’s Health Insurance Program. CHIP covers children whose families are not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid but who cannot afford medical insurance. Thompson said the action will provide "care for poor mothers so their children are going to be born healthy." The policy does not take effect until after publication in the Federal Register and after public comments are considered.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia expressed disagreement January 25 with the church’s teaching that the death penalty should be imposed rarely if at all. Scalia, a Catholic, said that the pope’s capital punishment teaching in the encyclical Evangelium Vitae was not proclaimed ex cathedra, and he is not obligated to accept it, but to give it serious consideration. "I have given it careful and thoughtful consideration, and rejected it," Scalia said. "I do not find the death penalty immoral." Scalia spoke with the caveat that his personal and religious views do not affect his job on the court. His job, he said, is to apply the constitution as it was written - at a time when capital punishment was a given. He made the comments at a January 25 conference at the University of Chicago Divinity School.

The Vatican, citing a new global danger since September 11, has ratified a U.N. convention prohibiting the development, production and stockpiling of biological weapons. The biological Weapons Convention, drafted in 1971, has been ratified by more than 150 countries, including the United States. But last year the Bush administration rejected a draft international protocol that would put verification and enforcement measures in place. After ratifying the U.N. convention, the Vatican gave a written statement to U.S. authorities underlining the need to promote "practical implementation" of its provisions, the Vatican said.