Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Rome (Fides Service) – The community of Pompei is waiting with fervid expectation for the arrival of his Holiness, while spiritual and material preparation continues” Archbishop Domenico Sorrentino tells Fides Service with regard to the Pope’s visit to Pompei on Tuesday 7 October, Feast of Our Lady Queen of the Rosary. He highlights the missionary nature of the Pope’s pilgrimage. “The Holy Father will prayer with the local community for the whole world for the problems and difficulties which afflict the peoples of all the continents.”
Pompei Marian shrine has its particular missionary aspects. “People come from all over the world to visit the famous excavations of Pompei, people of different faiths, people of no faith. And this is an opportunity for interreligious dialogue and missionary work. Precisely for this reason the Basilica’s facade is a monument to universal peace and it is here that the Holy Father will pray for the salvation of the world”.
“This pilgrimage is the crowning event of the Year of the Rosary which will be solemnly closed on the occasion of celebrations in Rome for the 25th year of pontificate” Mgr Sorrentino concludes.
On several occasions the Pope has referred to the Shrine of Pompei. In his letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae, Pope John Paul II’s writes: “At the start of the twenty-fifth year of my Pontificate, I entrust this Apostolic Letter to the loving hands of the Virgin Mary, prostrating myself in spirit before her image in the splendid Shrine built for her by Blessed Bartolo Longo, the apostle of the Rosary.” Yesterday, October 5, before praying the Angelus the Pope said: “Spiritually united with the new Saints we will invoke Mary with the title of Queen of the Rosary, at the shrine of Pompei where, God willing, I will go on pilgrimage the day after tomorrow”. LM (Fides Service 6/10/2003 EM lines 29 Words: 327)
