Columbanus:when Popes from today and yesterday speak in English and Irish...

As the Church remembers Saint Columbanus we bring you the words of Pope Benedict XVI focusing on the figure of Saint Columban on Wednesday 11 June 2008 :"...Today I would like to speak about the holy Abbot Columban, the best known Irishman of the early Middle Ages. Since he worked as a monk, missionary and writer in various countries of Western Europe with good reason he can be called a "European" Saint. With the Irish of his time, he had a sense of Europe's cultural unity. The expression "totius Europae - of all Europe", with reference to the Church's presence on the Continent, is found for the first time in one of his letters, written around the year 600, addressed to Pope Gregory the Great .."
But it's not just our present pope's words we bring you , it's also those of an earlier pope, Pius XII, who was dashing enough to speak of Columbanus not only in English but in Irish as well!
A programme produced by Veronica Scarisbrick.
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