BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

Tuesday, July 20, 15th Week in Ordinary Time

From left, the mosaic work in the apse of Sant'Apollinare in Classe; detail showing the saint; a Byzantine icon; a 16th century painting showing St. Apollinaris (left)
and St. Anthony Abbot with the Madonna.
ST. APOLLINARIS OF RAVENNA (first century AD), Bishop and Martyr
Tradition has it that he was a native of Antioch sent to Ravenna as bishop by St. Peter himself. Four times during his long service
(26 years), he was expelled from the city during various waves of anti-Christian persecution, returning each time except the last,
when he was captured by the Roman authorities and put to death. In Ravenna, there are two 6th-century basilicas named for him -
the first one, Sant'Apollinare in Classe built on the site of his martyrdom, the other one Sant'Apollinare Nuovo which housed his
relics for a few centuries to better preserve them from pirate desecration (Classe is near the sea). Both basilicas house some of
the best-preserved and finest works of Byzantine mosaic from late antiquity.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/nab/readings/072010.shtml



OR for 7/19-7/20:

Illustration: The prophet Elijah, icon by a 20th-century Bulgarian artist.
At the Sunday Angelus, Benedict XVI says vacation can be used to listen to God:
'The Word of God remains after everything is taken away'
Other Page 1 stories: The prophet Elijah, whose liturgical feast is also observed today, in the Byzantine tradition;
the latest drug-gang violence in Mexico results in 17 youths killed; continuing floods in central China since May raise
alarm for the Three Gorges Dam built over the Yangtze River four years ago. In the inside pages, an article on the
newly-emerged 7th-century fresco in Rome's basilica of Santa Sabina, and of the 400th centenary celebration of the
Archdiocese of Arequipa, in Peru, to which Pope Benedict XVI sent Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re as his personal
representative.