Vatican City, Jul 5, 2011 / 15:51 pm
Today Pope Benedict XVI visited the offices of the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano to celebrate its 150th anniversary.
“Let me tell you with my whole heart, as you would at home: Happy Birthday!” the Pope said to the paper’s staff of 100.
“Through your daily work, hidden and not without effort, you give life to this unique means of communication that is at the service of the ministry of the Successor of Peter, to bring a specific contribution to spreading the Gospel and witness to the truth.”
L’Osservatore Romano – The Roman Observer, in English - was launched on July 1, 1861, to defend the Papal States against the Italian political radical Giuseppe Garibaldi in his bid to subsume the Pope’s territories into a newly unified Italy. The paper’s ownership was independent of the Church up until 1885 when the Vatican acquired it during the reign of Pope Leo XIII.