Vatican invites worldwide Church to celebrate inauguration of Pope Benedict XVI

Vatican City, Apr 21, 2005 / 22:00 pm

On Sunday, the eyes of the world will once again fall on Rome as Pope Benedict XVI is inaugurated as 265th Pope of the Catholic Church.

Yesterday, the Vatican announced that the solemn Eucharistic celebration to inaugurate Pope Benedict’s would take place in St. Peter's Square on Sunday, April 24 at 10 a.m.

It added that all cardinals currently in Rome would concelebrate the Mass.
 
"The Church in Rome and in various parts of the world," the Vatican statement reads, "is invited to give filial thanks and make a fervent supplication to God to obtain for the new Roman Pontiff, who will be given the Petrine pallium and the Ring of the Fisherman, copious graces for his ministry for the good of the entire Church."
 
The statement added that on Monday, April 25, at 6:30 p.m., the Holy Father will visit the tomb of the Apostle Paul in the basilica of St. Paul's Outside-the-Walls on the Via Ostiense "to express the inseparable bond of the Church of Rome with the Apostle of the People together with the Fisherman from Galilee."
 
Joaquin Navarro-Valls, the Holy See Press Office Director Joaquin Navarro-Valls, announced yesterday that the new Holy Father would receive pilgrims from Germany who have come to celebrate the inauguration on Monday at the Vatican.
 
The Pope, he noted, would welcome journalists, on Saturday, April 23 at 11 a.m. in the Paul VI Hall.
 
The Vatican also noted that Pope Benedict XVI would receive heads of the diplomatic missions accredited to the Holy See and the heads of delegations present for the inauguration Mass following the celebration on Sunday, April 24--not on Monday, April 25, as previously announced.