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http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/i...redit_Daniel_Ibanez_CNA_CNA_4_3_14.jpgVatican City, Jan 29, 2016 / 10:45 am (CNA/EWTN News).- During his July visit to Poland for World Youth Day, it’s probable that Pope Francis will follow in the steps of his two immediate predecessors by traveling to the Nazi death camp Auschwitz, the Vatican spokesman has said.
Fr. Federico Lombardi, SJ, told journalists at the Jan. 27 presentation of the book “We were Jews” by 90-year-old Holocaust survivor Alberto Mieli that a summer visit to Auschwitz for the Pope is “highly probable.”
Pope Francis is scheduled to be in Poland for the July 25-31 World Youth Day – the first since the canonization of St. John Paul II in 2014.
Auschwitz, the German name for the Polish town Oswiecim where the camp is located, sits roughly 40 miles from Krakow. At least 1.1 million people died in the camp during its years of operation, 1940-1945.
The vast majority of prisoners – about 90 percent – who lost their lives at Auschwitz were Jewish men, women, and children. Other groups imprisoned and killed were Soviet POWs, gypsies, disabled persons, homosexuals, and Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Andrzej Duda, the Polish president, met with Pope Francis in November 2015. According to Arutz Sheva, an Israeli media network, Duda said that during their encounter the Pope “asked to visit Auschwitz and to pray there for the memory of the victims.”
Should Francis go to Auschwitz, he would follow in the steps of the Polish Pope, as John Paul II was often referred to as, in 1979, as well as Benedict XVI, a German, who made his landmark visit in 2006.
Full article…
Fr. Federico Lombardi, SJ, told journalists at the Jan. 27 presentation of the book “We were Jews” by 90-year-old Holocaust survivor Alberto Mieli that a summer visit to Auschwitz for the Pope is “highly probable.”
Pope Francis is scheduled to be in Poland for the July 25-31 World Youth Day – the first since the canonization of St. John Paul II in 2014.
Auschwitz, the German name for the Polish town Oswiecim where the camp is located, sits roughly 40 miles from Krakow. At least 1.1 million people died in the camp during its years of operation, 1940-1945.
The vast majority of prisoners – about 90 percent – who lost their lives at Auschwitz were Jewish men, women, and children. Other groups imprisoned and killed were Soviet POWs, gypsies, disabled persons, homosexuals, and Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Andrzej Duda, the Polish president, met with Pope Francis in November 2015. According to Arutz Sheva, an Israeli media network, Duda said that during their encounter the Pope “asked to visit Auschwitz and to pray there for the memory of the victims.”
Should Francis go to Auschwitz, he would follow in the steps of the Polish Pope, as John Paul II was often referred to as, in 1979, as well as Benedict XVI, a German, who made his landmark visit in 2006.
Full article…