LONDON (CWNews.com) - Pope John Paul II plans to call a meeting of world's major industrial nations in Assisi, Italy, later this year to secure promises for the reduction of Third World debt, one of his major Jubilee Year aims, said the British newspaper The Telegraph last week.

    The newspaper quoted Archbishop Crescenzio Sepe, president of the Vatican Committee for the Jubilee Year 2000, who said the Holy Father and Vatican had been working "for months" to plan the summit planned for September. The meeting would include the so-called G7 countries and Russia.

    Archbishop Sepe said Assisi was chosen because it is where St. Francis renounced his attachment to worldly goods. He added that the Pope is expected to ask for a "significant reduction" of the international debt of poor countries, which several of the Western powers, including the US and Britain, have already pledged. The Holy Father first proposed the debt forgiveness in his 1994 apostolic letter Tertio Millennio Adveniente which declared the Jubilee Year.