Pope Benedict to Loreto this weekend

Update: It looks like the kids in Loreto have already started the pre-arrival bash:

(REUTERS/Daniele La Monaca (ITALY)

CWNews:

Pope Benedict XVI will travel to Loreto, Italy this weekend for a gathering of young Italian Catholics.

The Holy Father will leave his summer residence on Saturday afternoon, September 1, traveling by helicopter to Loreto, on Italy's eastern coast. His weekend visit will include a question-and-answers session with the 800 participants in the "Agora" gathering, a time for private prayer in the Holy House of Loreto, and a Mass on Sunday morning. Pope Benedict will return to Castel Gandolfo on Sunday evening.

The "Agora" meeting is part of a 3-year campaign among Catholic youth, which in turn is the result of a pastoral-planning meeting among Italian Church leaders in 2006. The campaign, designed to reinvigorate the faith among young Italians, will continue through the World Youth Day observance in Sydney, Australia, in July 2008, and conclude with a final year of evangelization aimed at Italian youth.

Amy Welborn's new blog, "Charlotte was Both", has much more.

Next week Pope Benedict will be travelling next week to Mariazell, Austria, a popular Marian shrine that I was able to visit when I was studying nearby. More on that trip later.

Oh, and he's going to visit Naples in October.