Video: Pope Benedict's official greeting to the people of the United States

As announced yesterday, the Vatican Press Office is releasing a video greeting today from Pope Benedict XVI in anticipaton of his visit to the United States next week.

Vatican watcher Rocco Palmo explains the importance of this decision:

"... the move underscores both the import the church's central command is placing on next week's events and Rome's understanding of the usefulness and impact of new technology, both on the life of the Stateside church and the wider society here."

Well yes, that and the fact that the Vatican knows how much I love papist videos.

update: okay, not the smoothest roll out we've witnessed....

• update 3: here is the full video:

• The text of the message is available here

update 2: John Thavis of CNS has comments, John Allen as well:

Release of a video from the pope ahead of a foreign trip is not standard Vatican operating procedure. Vatican sources said the decision was the result of an unusually high volume of requests for interviews with the pope from American media outlets sparked by the impending trip. Although the pope turned down those requests, sources said his advisors were impressed with the interest and wanted to offer a response.