(26 Sep 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Fiumicino airport – 26 September 2024
1. Various of Pope Francis being assisted into plane
2. Pope in airport bus
3. Plane taking off
STORYLINE:
Pope Francis is travelling to once-strong bastions of Christianity in the heart of Europe to try to reinvigorate a Catholic flock that is dwindling in the face of secular trends and abuse scandals that have largely emptied the continent’s magnificent cathedrals and village churches.
Francis stops first Thursday in Luxembourg, the European Union’s second-smallest country, with a population of some 650,000 people, and its richest per capita.
Torrential downpours are expected, days after the 87-year-old pope cancelled his audiences because of a slight flu. He seemed in fine form at the Vatican on Wednesday, during his general audience on the eve of the trip, but his respiratory health is a constant concern and his usual medical team will be on hand.
After meeting with Luxembourg’s political leaders, Francis speaks to the country’s Catholic priests and nuns.
The venue is the late Gothic Cathedral of Notre Dame, which was built in the early 1600s by Francis’ own Jesuit order and stands as a monument to Christianity’s long and central place in European history.
Francis is likely to dwell on Europe’s role past, present and future – particularly as war rages on European soil — during his visits to Luxembourg and Belgium, where he arrives later Thursday and stays through the weekend.
The trip is a much-truncated version of the 10-day, 1985 tour St. John Paul II made through Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands, during which the Polish pope delivered 59 speeches or homilies and was greeted by hundreds of thousands of adoring faithful.
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