Pope to host post-Christmas lunch for the poor

(December 24, 2010) Pope Benedict is taking time after Christmas to host a Vatican lunch for the poor and to visit children in a Rome hospital. On Dec. 26, the feast of St. Stephen, people served by shelters run by Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity will join the Pope for lunch in the porch of the Paul VI audience hall inside Vatican City. In addition to giving the Pope the chance to personally offer a meal to the disadvantaged, the event also commemorates this year’s 100th anniversary of the birth of Blessed Mother Teresa, founder of the Missionaries of Charity, who was born in Yugoslavia on Aug. 26, 1910. She was beatified in 2003. The Vatican also announced that on Jan. 5, the eve of the Epiphany, the Pope will visit young patients at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital. While he is there, he will bless a spina bifida center and distribute gifts to the children who receive care there.