Cardinal Angelo Scola of Venice meets Kosovo officials

Associated Press, Jan 16, 2006 7:35 AM

 

PRISTINA, Serbia-Montenegro-Cardinal Angelo Scola, the patriarch of Venice, met with Kosovo's prime minister and other officials Monday.

 

Scola will also meet the deputy head of the U.N. mission in Kosovo, Larry Rossin, a U.N. statement said.

 

The cardinal came to the disputed province to attend the funeral last week of Bishop Mark Sopi, the head of the Catholic Church in Kosovo, who died of a heart attack.

 

Sopi, 67, was buried Saturday in the central Kosovo village of Bince, where he was born.

 

Sopi, an ethnic Albanian, was appointed Kosovo's bishop in 1996.

 

The late bishop was very close to Kosovo's ailing President Ibrahim Rugova, who is suffering from lung cancer.

 

Kosovo is predominantly Muslim. But some 4 percent of its people are ethnic Albanian Catholics.

 

Kosovo, which officially remains a province of Serbia-Montenegro, has been administered by the United Nations since 1999. Talks to determine its future status will start later this year.