The Vatican has billed Pope Benedict XVI’s four-day visit to Great Britain as a trip to beatify the 19th-century intellectual and theologian Cardinal John Henry Newman. But the pope’s schedule for the September visit is filled with other appointments as well, including a meeting with Queen Elizabeth II, with the British prime minister and members of the government’s opposition parties and with Anglican Archbishop Rowan Williams of Canterbury, spiritual leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion.
The beatification Mass on the last day of the pope’s Sept. 16-19 visit to Scotland and England will be the first beatification liturgy Pope Benedict has presided over; since his election in 2005, he has delegated that role to cardinals to highlight the difference between beatification and canonization.
VATICAN CITY (CNS)