ARCHBISHOP CORDES TO TRAVEL TO UGANDA TOMORROW

VATICAN CITY, OCT 24, 2002 (VIS) - Archbishop Paul Josef Cordes, president of the Pontifical Council "Cor Unum," will travel to Uganda from October 25 to 30 "to stimulate attention within and beyond the Church about this country, devastated by AIDS," according to a communique made public today. In February 2001, the Holy Father donated 500,000 euros to projects sponsored by local Catholic NGOs and the Missionaries of Charity of Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

Among the priorities of the initiatives financed by "Cor Unum" are the following: "To give orphans a family, to educate and build schools, health education to prevent AIDS, professional formation, especially for young people that have been in prisons for minors; the foundation of a house for children who are terminally ill with AIDS to be run by the Missionaries of Charity of Mother Teresa of Calcutta."

On October 25 in Kampala, Archbishop Cordes will visit a center of professional formation for boys who have been released from juvenile prisons. The next day he will inaugurate a house of the Missionaries of Mother Teresa for 60 children with AIDS. He will also go to an orphanage. On Sunday October 27 he will participate in a diocesan celebration in Kampala. On the 28th, he will go to Gulu, in the north of the country, where "the Church is committed to the reestablishment of the conditions for peace, threatened by the war that for 15 years has bloodied this region which borders Ruanda."

The president of "Cor Unum" will meet on October 29 with members of the Uganda Episcopal Conference and with Caritas and on October 30, he will visit the shrine of Namugongo which was built where the Ugandan martyrs were killed.

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