NEWS & VIEWS
from a CATHOLIC perspective

      BUCHAREST (CWNews.com) - Romanian Prime Minister Radu Vasile said on Friday that planning for a papal visit later this year was encountering resistance, mainly in the provincial areas.

      "There have been some problems apparently regarding the Pope's desire to visit Cluj and Bacau," Vasile told a meeting of his Christian Democrat Party, one of four in the centrist coalition. "I will see what can be done to settle this." Cluj and Bacau have large Catholic populations in this mainly Orthodox Christian country.

      Orthodox Patriarch Teoctist invited the Holy Father to visit the country earlier last month overcoming certain elements in the Romanian Orthodox Church who opposed a papal visit. Relations between Catholics and Orthodox have been strained since the fall of Communism early in the decade as Catholics demanded the return of properties stripped from the Church and given to the Orthodox by the Communists.

      The Romanian ambassador to the Vatican has said the papal visit will probably take place in May and be confined to the capital Bucharest. Vasile said the Holy Father had wanted to celebrate Masses in Cluj in Transylvania and in Bacau in Moldova.