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When and how to see the Pope while in Rome

Rome is not only a fantastic city for art, food and entertainment: it’s also a place of pilgrimage for many who come here to visit the tombs of the Saints Peter and Paul and of many Christian martyrs and saints. Furthermore, it’s home to the Pope, bishop of Rome, who resides in the City State of the Vatican. Many, both Catholic and not, ask how and when it is possible to see the Pope while they visit Rome. It may surprise you, but it’s actually easier than it might seem! When? The Pope has two weekly appointments where he speaks in public: the general audiences he holds every Wednesday morning and the Angelus prayer (or the Regina Coeli during Easter time) on Sundays. General Audiences are held at Saint Peter’s square, except when it’s very cold or raining – in those cases they move it to the Paul VI Audience Hall, just besides the colonnata by the Holy Office Door. Every Wednesday those who would participate in it gather early in the morning and listen a Scriptural text which is

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July 28, 2017 1:21 pm
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Pope Francis announces 2015 Extraordinary Holy Year

The Jubilee is an important historic event for Christianity Defined as the year of remission of sins and pains, it is also the year of solidarity and sacramental atonement. Also known as Holy Year, it usually recurs once in fifty years, but can recur for extraordinary recurrences as well. The last Great Jubilee of 2000 has been an epochal event Pope John Paul II and Rome received millions of pilgrims coming from all around the world to celebrate that unprecedented event. Next one should have been in 2025 , but the last 13 march Pope Francis announced an extraordinary Holy year dedicated to “the mercy of God”. Pope Francis made the announcement in a penitential liturgy for Lent, stating “I have often thought about how the Church might make clear its mission of being a witness to mercy. For this reason, I have decided to call an extraordinary Jubilee that is to have the mercy of God at its center,” he explained. It will begin the 8th December 2015 with the opening of the holy door of Saint Peter Basilica

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April 9, 2015 11:49 am
PEACE

From Christ peace for the whole world

What a great joy for me to give you this announcement: Christ is risen! I wish he came in every home, in every family, especially where there is more suffering in hospitals, prisons … “. The Pope said Francis, in his Easter Urbi et Orbi, who spoke at the end of the Mass celebrated in the churchyard of St. Peter. “Above all – said Bergoglio – I want this ad to reach everyone’s hearts, because that is where God wants to spread this good news: Jesus is risen, there is hope for you, you are no longer under the dominion of sin, evil ! He won the love, won mercy! Always wins the mercy of God. ” “What does it mean that Jesus is risen?” He asked the Pope “It means that God’s love is stronger than evil and death itself, it means that the love of God can transform our lives, to flourish those parts of the desert that we are in our heart. It can do this the love of God. “

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March 31, 2013 11:53 am
house of santa marta vatican city

The Pope has decided to stay in Santa Marta

The papal apartment on the third floor of the Apostolic Palace is ready, after the rapid maintenance work needed to put it back in again after eight years of the pontificate of Benedict XVI. But Francis Pope will move there, at least for now and for the foreseeable future, as early this morning by the Argentine newspaper La Nacion. “Until further notice,” announced the Vatican spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi, the Pope will remain up in the Argentine Domus Sancta Marthae, the residence housed the Vatican where the cardinals during the conclave and where normally inhabit a few dozen priests and bishops in service within the Vatican. Another half of the rooms is available instead of bishops and cardinals passing through Rome for hearings and meetings.

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March 27, 2013 6:48 am

The historical meeting of the two popes, We are brothers

Walk together after dinner crossing their impressions on the priority of the Church. Both excited, they give the “you” feel to be the protagonists of an event unprecedented in history. Then the images of the Vatican Television Center show Francis and Benedict in conversation, sitting in a living room. On the low table that divides them lean a white box with documents and within this there is a sealed envelope. Knelt before the image of Our Lady and prayed together.

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March 23, 2013 8:31 pm
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The real power of the Pope is to serve the most vulnerable

Explosions of popular joy alternating with silences of intense prayer. Francis has spoken out this morning in St. Peter’s Square for the inaugural mass, which officially began his pontificate. Before receiving from the hands of Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran and Angelo Sodano respectively the pallium and the ring of the fisherman, the Pope chose the coat of arms and the motto of his pontificate. “Miserable atque eligendo” is the cliche insert in his papal coat of arms. The Pope at one point he did stop the jeep to go down into the crowd and kiss a paraplegic. More than 130 delegations from around the world are: 31 heads of state, six reigning monarchs, hereditary 3 Principles, 11 heads of government. Thirty-three delegations from churches and Christian denominations, including the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I. Also present were the delegation Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, sick, Jain. 180 concelebrants. The Pope fell in procession with the Patriarchs of the Eastern Churches at the Tomb of St. Peter.

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March 19, 2013 4:27 pm
Spiral Straircase Vatican

Pope Francis went to pray to St. Maria Maggiore

Pope Francesco I arrived a few minutes after 8 AM in Santa Maria Maggiore, one of the main churches of the capital, which is located outside the Vatican. The Pope entered the church by a side entrance. Waiting for fifty people, most of them reporters and photographers. After half an hour left Papa Francesco Santa Maria Maggiore, after praying in the Pauline Chapel of the Basilica, which is the image of the Salus Populi Romani which gives its name to Santa Maria Maggiore. The Pope was accompanied by the prefect of the Pontifical Household George Gaenswein, private secretary of Benedict XVI, and the vice-Father Leonardo Sapienza.

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March 14, 2013 7:08 am

Bergoglio, the Jesuit Pope that takes the subway

VATICAN CITYThe new Pope, the Argentine Jorge Mario Bergoglio, a Jesuit, 76 years was Cardinal Ratzinger already the most votes after the last conclave. Bergoglio was a cardinal abnormal. He always refused positions in the Roman Curia and the Vatican has always come only when it was really necessary. Among the vices of men of the Church that bears less is the “spiritual worldliness’ careerism church disguised as a refinement to the clerical forms.

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March 13, 2013 7:50 pm
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Habemus Papam: Is Bergoglio

Lombardi: The courage of Cardinalschoice of Pope Bergoglio is a “surprise” and it was a choice that demonstrates “the courage of the cardinals to broaden perspectives. It is the first time a pope from another continent. ” Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican press office accepts her the choice of his successor Benedict XVI. A Pope who demonstrates “style of simplicity and evangelical witness” and that is also a continuity with Benedict XVI. For Lombardi is “a good response to the expectations of the people of Latin America.”21:19 “The Pope has said he wants to pray Our Lady and tomorrow will probably be in Santa Maria Maggiore.” He said the director of the Vatican press office, Father Federico Lombardi, in press briefing

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March 13, 2013 7:33 pm