Papal trip to Portugal has Marian touch, says Papal spokesman

(May 05, 2010) Pope Benedict XVI's trip to Portugal next week, May 11-14 will have a Marian emphasis, said the director of the Vatican press office. Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi presenting the papal schedule on Tuesday said the Holy Father will celebrate the 10th anniversary of the beatification of the little shepherds Jacinta and Francisco Marto who, together with their cousin Lucia dos Santos, who died in 2005, were the witnesses of Our Lady's apparitions in 1917.
Pope Benedict will be the third Pope to visit the Fatima shrine, after Pope Paul VI in 1967, and Pope John Paul II's three trips in 1982, 1991 and 2000.
For Father Lombardi, Fatima is "a Marian shrine, where events occurred with which, Pope Benedict has been personally concerned in a very profound way, also from the point of view of theology and spirituality." As Cardinal Ratzinger and Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he wrote a document on the event, published in 2000.
The Holy See spokesman referred also to the emphasis this trip will give to the world of the clergy in the celebration of vespers with priests, religious, and seminarians in the Church of the Most Holy Trinity of Fatima, and the meeting with bishops in Lisbon. “We will be just one month before the conclusion of the Year for Priests and the context is very appropriate," he explained.
Pope Benedict XVI will arrive at the Marian shrine on the afternoon of May 12. While there, he will recall the attack John Paul II suffered on May 13, 1981. The motto of this trip is "Together With You We Will Walk in Hope."It is Pope Benedict’s 15^th apostolic trip outside Italy.