Vatican City, Aug 18, 2010 / 13:01 pm
The Vatican's spokesman hopes that the Pope's visit to the U.K. will make known the positive contribution of the Christian faith to a widely "secularized" society. Touching on the delicacy of relations between Anglicans and Catholics, he also commented that meetings between the Pope and representatives of the Church of England during the trip are "very significant."
On Wednesday, the Vatican released the final schedule for Pope Benedict XVI's Sept. 16-19 visit to the U.K. Accompanying the announcement was a Vatican Radio interview with Fr. Federico Lombardi, the Holy See's spokesman.
The final program will see the Pope in Scotland on Sept. 16, when he will meet with Queen Elizabeth II and celebrate an outdoor Mass in Glasgow. Over the next two days of the trip, he will spend time meeting with religious leaders, the faithful and representatives of civil society in a series of gatherings and celebrations in London, England.
The concluding event of what Fr. Lombardi called a "very rich, intense (and) articulate" program will be on Sept. 19 in Birmingham. In what is by all accounts the culminating moment of the trip, the Holy Father will preside over the beatification ceremony of Cardinal John Henry Newman.