Pope postpones visit to Rome sanctuary ahead of Holy Land visit
May 15, 2014 - The planned visit of Pope Francis to Rome’s popular shrine of ‘Divino
Amore’ (Divine Love) on Sunday, has been postponed. In a brief statement, Holy See’s
spokesman, Fr. Federico Lombardi said that the visit will be rescheduled but for the
moment no date has been fixed as yet. The reason behind the postponement of the
visit, the Jesuit priest explained, was to make the Pope’s schedule light ahead of
his important ecumenical visit to the Holy Land, next week, May 24-26. Pope Francis
is making his 3-day trip to the land of Jesus to commemorate the 50th anniversary
of the historic meeting between Pope Paul VI and Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras
of Constantinople in Jerusalem in 1964, the first such encounter between the two
heads in over 500 years since the Great Schism of 1054, that split Christianity into
Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches.