BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

August 5, Wednesday

Dedication of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore
Commemorates the date in 352 AD when Mary appeared to a Roman couple in a dream and told them to build a church on the Esquiline Hill
where they would find a patch of snow even if it was mid-August. Pope Liberius had the same dream and ordered the church built. Subsequently,
it was enlarged and Santa Maria Maggiore is now the largest Marian shrine in the world. The image venerated there is the Salus Popoli Romani
(Mary, Health of the Roman People), left photo, traditionally said to be one of the Marian images painted by St. Luke. (Right photo is a contemporary
image of Our Lady of the Snow).


OR today.

Illustration: Stained-glass window, Church of the Transfiguration, Taize, France.
No papal stories in this issue. A front page commentary considers the Feast of the Transfiguration
tomorrow, relating it to Pope Paul VI who died on this feast day 31 years ago, and to Pope Benedict XVI
for his Caritas in veritate. Page 1 international news: More tension and protests on the streets
of Tehran; Arafat's Fatah party in Palestine meets in Bethlehem, seeking a renewal under Palestinian
Authority president Abu Mazen; and Bill Clinton in Pyongyang to obtain the release of two American
female journalists convicted as spies. In the inside pages, a long article spells out the Church's position
on stem-cell research under the title "This is not Galileo all over'.


THE POPE'S DAY
General Audience today - As he announced Sunday, the Holy Father dedicated his catechesis today
to St. Jean-Baptiste Marie Vianney, the Cure of Ars, whose feast day was yesterday, the anniversary
of his death 150 years ago, which the Church is celebrating as a Jubilee Year for Priests.