Sanctuary at Loreto
Posted on 08/18/2004 6:00:38 AM PDT by NYer
VATICAN CITY - Two days after a grueling papal pilgrimage which left some wondering if Pope John Paul II could still travel, the Vatican on Tuesday announced details of the ailing pontiff's next trip.
The Vatican said John Paul would fly on Sept. 5 from his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo, near Rome, to Loreto, an Italian town near the Adriatic which is home to a shrine to the Virgin Mary. There the 84-year-old pope will celebrate a stamina-testing two-hour outdoor Mass.
During his pilgrimage to Lourdes, France, John Paul, who has Parkinson's disease, alarmed observers when he started slipping off a kneeler and had to be quickly helped into a chair. At other appearances during the trip he gasped for breath and asked aides for help.
On Monday, Belgian Cardinal Godfried Danneels was quoted in Belgian media as saying the pontiff was "seriously weakened."
The pope has said on several occasions that he plans to forge ahead in his mission as long as God allows him.
The Vatican said the pope will give a homily and then recite prayers after the Mass. John Paul increasingly has had difficulty in speaking and sometimes has aides deliver most of his remarks. When he struggled, exhausted, to read his speech before hundreds of thousands of faithful in Lourdes, the crowd repeatedly broke out in applause to acknowledge his dogged efforts.
Vatican officials have raised the possibility the pope might make a pilgrimage to Istanbul, Turkey, taking up the invitation of a Christian Orthodox leader, in the coming months.
I've always wanted to visit Loreto. My mother was named after the shrine.
No other Pope in history has spoken and written with such abundance, devotion and awareness about the Holy House of Loreto as John Paul II. And no other Pope has visited the Shrine of Loreto no less than four times, as he has (1979, 1985, 1994, 1995).
Leni
I've been there twice. It's an awesome experience. There are deep ridges grooved into the marble step that surrounds the Holy House, made by the thousands of pilgrims that circled the house on their knees, over the centuries.
"From the latter half of the sixteenth century, the devout Loreto tradition involves numerous religious, artistic and literary manifestations, and the Holy House of Loreto became the destination of pilgrimages and a spiritual and cultural centre of the most important and noteworthy of Europe.
The unanimous tradition declares that the sacred chapel of Loreto is the same in which the Virgin Mary was born , received the annunciation from the angel and conceived the Saviour by the miracle of the Holy Spirit. The Pope accepts without doubt that which is contained in the hagiographical tale, in agreement with that which had been previously written by Pope Julius II in 1507 about the events which took place in the Nazarene house before the Assumption of the Virgin. He doesn't mention any of the various translations, but simply declares that the holy chapel was moved by angelic ministry to the Loreto church."
You can view a video of the Sanctuary at this link:
I am sick of this media vulture watch waiting for the Pope to drop dead (hopefully on-camera, of course).
Then we can all be treated to the speculation about his successor and how he will deal with the molestation scandal.
All they are waiting for is a new opportunity to bash Catholics.
Ah yesss, knew him well. Now go away boy, you bother me!
Viva il Papa! Viva il Papa!!
R. Daneel Olivaw, eh?
Prayers for John Paul II.
I wouldn't trust Danneels to tell me the weather even if I was standing outside.
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