Oporto will be last stop
on Pope's trip to Portugal
Translated from
ROME, Dec. 4 - Lisbon, Fatima, and now, Oporto
[Porto, to the Portuguese] is confirmed.
Pope Benedict XVI's trip to Portugal (May 11-14, 2010) will wind up in the 'Cidade Invicta' [unconquered city], so-called for having successfully resisted attack by the Moors as well as by Napoleonic force centuries later.
The official announcement of the visit is expected to be made on Monday by the Vatican and the Portuguese government, it was anticipated today by Radio Renascença, the official radio station of the Church in Portugal.
Benedict XVI will arrive in Lisbon on May 11. After the welcome ceremony at the airport, he will proceed to the presidential palace of Belem for a call on the President of the Republic.
In the evening, there will be an open-air celebration [Mass?] at the Terreiro do Paco, on the square where the Royal Palace of Ribeira was once located.
The Pope will stay at the Apostolic Nunciature in Lisbon, where he will be meeting privately with the Prime Minister, Jose Socrates.
The following day, the Pope will visit the Centro Cultural de Belém for a meeting with the Portuguese world of culture. In teh afternoon, he will proceed to Fatima, where his first event will be Vespers with the clergy, religious and consecrated persons in the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima.
The next day, May 13, the Holy Father will celebrate Mass on the anniversary of the Virgin Mary's first apparition to three Portuguese peasant children in 1917.
In the afternoon, he will meet with church associations engaged in charitable and social activities.
He flies to Oporto the next morning, May 14, where he will celebrate Mass on the Avenida dos Aliados in the center of the city. He will depart for Rome after the Mass.
I tried to check this out on the sites of the Fatima Shrine, the Portuguese bishops' conference and Radio Renascenza itself, to see if I could get other details. I cannot find a similar report, but I don't doubt it at all. Il Velino may have taken its report directly from a radio broadcast, not from the news that Renascenza posts in print form.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 06/12/2009 01:01]