Papal parties and more details about his visit to the U.S.
VATICAN CITY — Yes, at least one rendition of ”Happy Birthday” and a formal celebration of Pope Benedict XVI’s 81st birthday April 16 are part of the program for the pope’s trip to the United States. More solemnly, but still personally, the schedule also includes a public acknowledgement April 19 of the third anniversary of his election as pope.
Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican’s communications czar, spent 45 minutes today going over the papal schedule with Vatican journalists and photographers, including most of the 70 media-folk who will be on the papal plane.
The theme for the visit, the major speeches and the plans for the liturgies were all reviewed before Father Lombardi played the video message the pope prepared for the trip.
On matters of substance, for example, the Jesuit suggested reporters prepare for the trip by reading the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which turns 60 years old this year and likely will be the central focus of Pope Benedict’s talk to the U.N. General Assembly.
But he also guaranteed the papal anniversaries will be marked. Pope Benedict will be the guest of honor at a “birthday luncheon” April 16 at the apostolic nunciature in Washington. The invitees include the 17 U.S. cardinals (although age and fraility may keep one or two away), the officers of the U.S. bishops’ conference and the papal entourage.
Father Lombardi did not mention a cake. And, unfortunately no one thought to ask.
Before the birthday lunch, the pope is expected to be greeted with a 21-gun salute — but Father Lombardi said that is part of “the rather serious” White House protocol for welcoming a foreign head of state, not a birthday honor.
Pope Benedict will be in New York on the April 19 anniversary of his election and will begin the day celebrating Mass in St. Patrick’s Cathedral with a congregation of priests and religious. Father Lombardi said the Mass will feature prayers for the universal church specifically to coincide with the papal anniversary. In addition, he said, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican secretary of state, will offer greetings to the pope in the name of Catholics around the world.
That same evening, the papal spokesman said, Pope Benedict will be treated to another chorus of “Happy Birthday” when he meets young people at St. Joseph’s Seminary.
On the curiosity page: Father Lombardi said the trip — with two 10-hour flights across the ocean and a 6-hour time difference between Rome and the East Coast — has raised questions about the exact dates of the papal trip. For people in the United States it is April 15-20, but for the Vatican and its keepers of papal statistics, the trip is April 15-21 since the pope is not expected to land at Rome’s Ciampino airport until 10:45 a.m. on the 21st.
If you look at the Vatican information about the trip, you will see that all the references are to an April 15-21 visit.
Prayers for the papal trip from across the ocean
ROME — Pope Benedict XVI joined members of the Rome-based Sant’Egidio Community for an afternoon prayer service today. Although the visit marked the 40th anniversary of the community — committed to serving the poor, to dialogue and to peacemaking — it also focused on the example of Christians who gave their lives for the Gospel in the 20th century. The service was held in Rome’s Basilica of St. Bartholomew, where the Sant’Egidio Community has set up little chapels dedicated to the “new martyrs.”
In the prayers of the faithful, Marco Impagliazzo, president of the community, turned the focus away from the martyrs and away from Sant’Egidio.
”Lord,” he prayed, “accompany with your love the Holy Father, Benedict XVI, at the beginning of a new year of Petrine service (his anniversary of his election is April 19) and bless his apostolic trip to the United States and United Nations. Sustain him with your Holy Spirit while, with frankness and generosity, he proclaims the joy of faith to the world.”
People in the United States will get a bit of that proclamation even before Pope Benedict lands in Washington next Tuesday afternoon; the Vatican announced today that he had prepared a video message for the people of the country.
Unlike video messages released by the Vatican for Pope Benedict’s trips to Brazil and to Austria, this one is custom-made. The others were clips pulled from remarks the pope made at a general audience in the days before the trips.
However, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi — head of the Vatican press office, Vatican Radio and the Vatican television center — said it’s not a totally new invention. On several occasions Pope John Paul II recorded video messages for broadcast before his arrival in a country.
Pilgrims of the world honor JPII
VATICAN CITY — Thousands of people flocked to St. Peter’s Square Tuesday to attend a memorial Mass for Pope John Paul II, who died on that date three years ago.
The blue balloons on this Google map show you just some of the places they all traveled from.
I talked to several people in the square about why they came and what they thought of the late pope. You can read more of what they told me by clicking on some of the balloons below. Or, click here to bring the world map up on a separate page to view what these pilgrims of the world said.
Vatican blurbs for new book
VATICAN CITY — Carl Anderson, Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus, hopped over to Rome and the Vatican this week to promote his new book, “A Civilization of Love: What Every Catholic Can Do to Transform the World.”
The first-time author, whose book and related survey were unveiled last week at events in Washington and New York, got a warm welcome and rave reviews in Rome during his book presentation, which was hosted by Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi and Vatican Radio.
Too bad the book’s backcover jacket is already covered with blurbs from top Catholic commentators — there’s no room now for the thumbs-up reviews the book got from the Vatican. So I’ll just share a few snippets of what Vatican panelists said during today’s presentation:
Father Lombardi, head of the Vatican’s press office, television station and Vatican Radio, called it ”a very important and interesting book.” He continued:
“(Carl Anderson) has presented the big issues, the big problems of the world of today, the challenges we see before us. And in a very clear, simple language he has helped not only the Knights of Columbus, but many other people to understand, to reflect what can we do to solve these big challenges.”
U.S. Cardinal J. Francis Stafford, head of the Vatican’s Apostolic Penitentiary and former president of the Vatican’s laity council, said the book is “a meditation upon rebirth” and “a reflection on St. John’s ‘God is love.’”
“(Anderson) states his purpose is to outline the way the Catholic laity should create a civilization of love. Carl Anderson has discovered his mature identity as a Catholic by his fidelity to the sources of revelation, sacred Scriptures, and the sacred tradition.”
The president of Rome’s Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, Msgr. Livio Melina, praised the book for having “the courage to propose a great, positive vision” and realistic ideals that Christians and all people of good will can work toward.
Msgr. Melina said he liked how each chapter ended with ”original suggestions for contemplation and action” which, in his opinion, made the book:
“a modern handbook of spiritual exercises that update the Ignatian spiritual exercises for the lay Christian of our day. It is concerned with the practice of seeing reality with new eyes, thinking with new criteria, and acting according to new perspectives.”
Finally, Msgr. Jean Laffitte, vice president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, underlined Anderson’s assertion ”that Christians have the responsibility to transform culture radically.”
But, he said, the author is advocating a moral, ethical revolution
“not by imposing values … from above, but through a subtler, more powerful process: living a vocation of love in the day to day reality of our lives. A love whose actions are grounded in the sacrificial love of Jesus Christ.”
Dismantling the “culture of suspicion” and building up a civilization of love “involves a personal willingness to see Christ in the suffering of all human beings around us such that our only response to them is one of responsibility for them in love,” said Msgr. Laffitte.
He also lauded Anderson’s book as being “a new powerful tool for which to expand the new evangelization to every world culture.”
Pastry dialogue
I wandered into Rome’s Jewish ghetto neighborhood because I read an intriguing little report about Pope Benedict’s favorite bakery.
The tiny Limentani pastry shop has long been a favorite of mine. I go for the same reason most 
people go: their “Jewish pizza,” a type of miniature fruit cake packed with almonds, raisins and other stuff I’ve never identified. It looks terrible and tastes great.
I asked the senior woman behind the counter about the report that the pope had their sweets delivered to his table. Through a series of phrases and gestures, she let me know that it was somewhere between maybe and probably true.
“The other pope, too,” she said. Before I could respond, customers in the jam-packed bakery began talking excitedly about John Paul II, the “other pope,” the one who in 1986 came to visit their synagogue a block away.
“He and Rabbi Toaff were great friends,” one woman said. That prompted a whole new round of assent and acclamation in the shop. When Pope John Paul died, Elio Toaff, Rome’s former chief rabbi, made a moving visit to pray before the pope’s body. In his own spiritual testament, John Paul remembered the rabbi in a special way. “Now that was a pope!” one customer said.
They were still talking about Pope John Paul when I left the pastry shop, toting my pizza ebraica.
I passed by the synagogue, where 22 years ago I watched Pope John Paul pay his visit. I still remember the impression he made when he called Jews “our beloved elder brothers.”
At the street level of interreligious dialogue, those personal gestures endure. Pope Benedict also visited a synagogue in his native Germany, but he’s not as well known by the Rome Jewish community. His taste in pastries could change that.
Popemobile shipped to U.S.
(Cross-post from the CNS Vatican page.)
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — While Pope Benedict XVI probably has not begun packing his bags for his April 15-20 trip to the United States, one big Vatican package was prepared just after Easter.
The white, 2002 Mercedes-Benz popemobile has left the Vatican and will be delivered by an air cargo company in the first days of April, said Alberto Gasbarri, the chief organizer of papal trips.
The Vatican has three popemobiles currently in use:
– A four-month-old, open-topped Mercedes based on the company’s G500-series sport utility vehicle, used almost exclusively in St. Peter’s Square. The vehicle has an attachable, curved windshield that can protect the pope from rain and wind. Mercedes describes the color as “Vaticanmystic white.”
– Two closed, white popemobiles, which are modified versions of the Mercedes-Benz ML430 off-road vehicle. The “glass” top is a cube made of advanced, bulletproof plastic. Both vehicles feature a high seat so the pope can still be visible.
One of the ML430 models is being used for the U.S. trip, Gasbarri said.
While long, multiple-city papal trips often require shipping both popemobiles to different cities, then flying them to another stop, Gasbarri said, “With only two cities on this trip, one popemobile will be enough.”
An official in the Vatican motor pool said there really was not a choice to make between the two ML430s since “one is in the repair shop.”
Mercedes-Benz originally delivered one of the vehicles with a “mother of pearl” tint, but the Vatican decided it was too gray, and so repainted it, the motor pool official said.
PHOTO: Pope Benedict XVI waves as he rides in the popemobile through downtown Sao Paulo shortly after his arrival in Brazil last year. (CNS/Reuters)
Safe and sound
The Vatican is the safest and most stable country on Earth, according to a British-based risk assessment organization.
Jane’s Information Group analyzed 235 nations and independent territories around the world, taking into account each country’s political makeup, social and economic progress, security threats and its relations with other states. The result is that out of a perfect score of 100, Vatican City State tallied 99, tying with Sweden and Luxembourg.
Canada and the U.S. came in 23rd and 24th respectively. The United States lost points (it scored an average of 93 out of 100) in part because of the country’s high number of citizens who possess firearms and the amount of illegal drugs entering its borders.
Christian Le Miere, managing editor of Jane’s Country Risk, which assembled the data, reportedly admitted it was ”a little unfair” to let the Vatican nab the top slot since “it did not face the sort of threats and economic pressures of other countries,” wrote the UK’s TimesOnLine March 25.
While it does have excellent (and colorful) security forces as well as an extremely stable form of government, the Vatican isn’t exactly crime free. Statistically it has one of the world’s highest per capita crime rates. However, as a past CNS story reveals:
For the 108-acre independent state surrounded by Rome, the context is that while the number of full-time residents is fewer than 500 some 2,700 people work there and some 10 million people visit each year.
In 2002, the Vatican City State court dealt with 608 crimes — more than one for each resident, a ratio well above anything recorded anywhere by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crimes.
Nicola Picardi, the court’s promoter of justice or prosecutor, said the vast majority of the crimes were petty thefts.
“With the large number of faithful going into St. Peter’s Basilica or the Vatican Museums each day, naturally there are a few who occasionally join the crowd and lift a wallet or two,” said Gianluigi Marrone, a court judge.
“Every once in a while, the police catch the thief,” Marrone told Catholic News Service.
Only a handful of major crimes stand out in recent Vatican history:
- The 1981 assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II in St. Peter’s Square.
- The 1998 Swiss Guard murders-suicide when a young Swiss Guard shot and killed the Guard’s commander and the commander’s wife before taking his own life.
- Last year, a 25-year-old Vatican police cadet died in an apparently suicide after he shot himself in the head in the bathroom of his Vatican barracks.
- And just recently, the Vatican court realized that it had to start drafting its own anti-drug laws dealing with the possession and sale of illegal drugs after a Vatican employee was caught with 87 grams of cocaine.
The Vatican does have its own prison, but it is rarely used — another indicator that this tiny territory, while not perfect, is as enviably safe and orderly as the UK intelligence group’s assessment.
Anticipating what the pope might say (Part 2)
With all the media speculation on what the pope might say in America next month, there’s a story of ours that’s not getting the attention it deserves. CNS Rome bureau chief John Thavis last week wrote that one need look no further than Pope Benedict’s Palm Sunday Mass homily for themes he’ll likely address here. (Here’s our first-day story on what the pope said that day.)
Thanks to the Internet, it’s been fairly easy to find both the media speculation and the Catholic blog reaction, as well as other reports in the Catholic press on the trip. One Catholic blogger gave our Thavis kudos for another story he wrote — a profile of the enigma Benedict XVI is for many non-Christians. (Scroll down to the bottom of this blog entry for an analysis of our story.)
I may sound like a broken record (and my use of that analogy probably betrays my age), but we’d like to think that with three reporters permanently stationed in Rome, CNS is the place to look for both the best Vatican coverage and the best coverage of what this trip really means for America and for Catholicism.