From The London Times-
The Vatican has denied that Pope Benedict XVI had "health problems" after it emerged that he is to hold the traditional Christmas Eve Midnight Mass two hours early.
Father Federico Lombardi said that the decision to hold the mass at ten in the evening had been taken nearly two months ago. The service would end at midnight rather than starting at midnight in order to "to tire the Pope a bit less" and enable him to retire to bed earlier to rest before before the rigours of Christmas Day, when he reads his "Urbi et Orbi" message to the city and the world. "There is no cause for alarm," Father Lombardi said.
Andrea Tornielli, the biographer of Pope Benedict and other modern Popes, said however that Pope John Paul II had never varied the Christmas liturgical calendar and had always held the mass at midnight, even in the final years of his decline. He died in 2005.
The German-born pontiff, 82, is committed to a busy travel schedule for 2010, including a planned trip to Britain in the autumn during which he will beatify Cardinal John Henry Newman, the celebrated nineteenth century Anglican convert to Roman Catholicism.
More here-
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6947161.ece
No comments:
Post a Comment