Anniversaries mark papal schedule after Easter.
Vatican, April 5th - Pope Benedict XVI will have a few days of rest immediately after Easter, as he marks the first anniversary of his election.
After celebrating Easter Sunday Mass in the morning in St. Peter's Square, and delivering his Urbi et Orbi message at noon, the Holy Father will travel to Castel Gandolfo, to spend a few days of rest there. On Easter Sunday, April 16, the Pope will also be celebrating his 79th birthday.
On Easter Monday-- Pasquetta or "Little Easter" in Italy-- the Pope will make a single public appearance at the papal summer residence, to lead the Regina Caeli: the midday prayer that replaces the Angelus during the 40 days of Eastertide.
Tuesday, April 18 will be the anniversary of the date when the cardinals opened the conclave that would elect a successor to Pope John Paul II. Cardinal Ratzinger was the principal celebrant of the Mass Pro Eligendo Romano Pontefice, after which the 115 cardinal-electors filed into the Sistine Chapel to begin their deliberations.
April 19, then, will be the first anniversary of the new Pope's election. Pope Benedict plans to travel by helicopter to the Vatican that day for his regular weekly public audience, returning to Castel Gandolfo in the afternoon.
On Friday, April 21, the Pontiff will hold a morning audience with the bishops of Ghana, who are making their ad limina visit to the Vatican. Later in the day he will return to the Vatican, again traveling by helicopter, to attend an evening concert celebrating the founding of the city of Rome-- according to legend, in 253 BC.
On April 22, Cardinal Angelo Sodano will be the principal celebrant at a Mass in the Vatican basilica for the Society of Jesus, marking the 500th anniversary of the birth of St. Francis Xavier. (Some commentators see it as significant that although the Pope will be at the Vatican, the Secretary of State will be preside-- arguably a sign of the Pope's dissatisfaction with the Jesuit order.) Pope Benedict will address the congregation at the conclusion of the Mass.
On Sunday, April 22, the Pope will hold his usual Regina Caeli audience. Then on April 24 he will mark the anniversary of his inaugural Mass as Roman Pontiff.
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Italy PM 'needs five more years'
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has said he needs another five years to bring Italy from the Middle Ages into the modern world. Mr Berlusconi was addressing a crowd of about 2,000 supporters of his Forza Italia party in Rome.
It was his last election rally in the Italian capital before this weekend's general elections.
He appealed to student and pensioner voters, and stressed his party's commitment to upholding family values.
Speaking to the converted, and with no time restraints for his final public address in Rome, Mr Berlusconi offered something for everyone if he is re-elected this weekend.
He promised at his first cabinet meeting to cancel a much-criticised local property tax which all house owners have to pay.
Mr Berlusconi, confidently grasping his lectern, then went on to make promises to students, offering them tax breaks if they wanted to become enterprising businessmen like himself.
He appealed to pensioners who would, he said, enjoy free train and bus travel, free entrance to cinemas and theatres and also get a free licence to watch television if he is returned to office at the weekend.
The Italian prime minister then took the moral high ground and called upon this predominantly Catholic country to vote for him, not his leftist opponents as he, unlike them, he said, would uphold family values.
The Vatican has remained on the sidelines in this election campaign, but neither the centre right nor the centre left can be said to have a monopoly of the Catholic vote.
Earlier Mr Berlusconi had been rapped on the knuckles by the watchdog authority which is attempting to limit Mr Berlusconi's air time on the commercial television channels which he owns.
He withdrew from a planned television appearance later on Wednesday.
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CivCity: Rome on the way to your PC?
2K Games has announced that CivCity: Rome, a city building strategy game inspired by Sid Meier's Civilization, is currently in development for the PC.
The game is being produced by Firefly Studios - the company behind the Stronghold series - together with Firaxis Games. According to 2K Games, it will offer "the most detailed look at Roman life ever depicted on a computer screen," though of course they would say that.
You'll start off with a small settlement, building it up until you've got yourself a huge imperial city. You can construct amphitheatres, legionnaire forts, weapons workshops, circuses and even schools for gladiators, amongst all manner of other stuff. And then set fire to it and start fiddling. Possibly.
CivCity: Rome is out this summer.
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Disney Mediterranean Cruise to include Rome.
The Disney Magic will sail out of Barcelona with stops in several ports in summer 2007.
Forget the faux Venetian palace with imported wine and chocolate at Walt Disney World's Epcot.
The entertainment giant is moving on to the real thing with Mickey set to take up residence on the Mediterranean next summer for the company's first European cruises.
Disney Cruise Line announced Tuesday its 2007 summer itineraries based in Barcelona, Spain -- a move needed to keep repeat customers sailing the Disney brand and reap higher profits in the summer when the cruise industry is forced to offer competitive bargains to the Caribbean.
The last of the big Florida-based cruise lines to station a ship in the Mediterranean, Disney will send the 2,700-passenger Disney Magic on a 14-day voyage from Port Canaveral to Europe, where it will cruise from May of next year until mid-August.
Disney is banking on its reputation as a provider of safe, hassle-free travel to cash in on families who might not otherwise brave a European adventure on their own.
"People trust the Disney brand," said Cruise Line President Tom McAlpin, who expects most passengers to be from the United States. "They know we're going to provide a safe and secure environment."
The idea is that families can be ferried from Spain to the French Riviera to the heart of Italy with the comfort of sleeping each night on the Disney Magic and without the hassle of worrying about travel or finding kid-friendly food and entertainment.
"This is really among the last companies to do this," said Oivind Mathisen, editor of New York-based Cruise Industry News. "It's a product to offer repeat customers . . . or these people will go to somebody else's ship so it's a way of holding on to your market."
Last year Carnival Cruise Lines launched its first European cruises and announced this week that it would expand those offerings this year as well as station its larger Carnival Freedom ship in the Mediterranean next year.
Next year Carnival will offer 12-day Mediterranean and Greek Isle cruises and 12-day "Grand Mediterranean" cruises that operate out of Rome.
Albert Poggio, senior vice president of the Association of Mediterranean Cruise Ports in Barcelona, said Disney will bring a special flavor that will attract more young children who, he hopes, develop a taste for Europe and continue to return as adults.
"What they're going to add is, of course, Disney," Poggio said, explaining that the new offering can "break them [young passengers] in to cruising and then when they get older they want to take their own cruise."
The company's venture into the Mediterranean positions it for potential expansion as well, though it would likely remain a small player compared with Carnival, which sails an 80-ship fleet and plans to add 16 new vessels.
Disney Cruise Line Vice President Tom Wolber said the company is considering building a third ship.
"When the time is right, when the Euro conversion rates are right, we certainly are going to grow the business," Wolber said.
Disney carries now about 262,000 cruise passengers a year. It started the Port Canaveral-based cruise line in 1998 with a focus on the Caribbean, where it owns a private island called Castaway Cay.
Though hurricanes have pushed ships into last-minute itinerary changes in the past few years, the industry is continuing to see an increase in bookings with 11.7 million people expected to cruise this year.
An A.G. Edwards report on the industry released Tuesday said bookings for this year are steady, but not robust. Prices are strongest in seasonal markets of Alaska and Europe, flat or even down in the Caribbean.
McAlpin said he is "happy with our pace of bookings right now" headed into this year's hurricane season. The unpredictable storms did not factor into Disney's plans to remove one of its ships from hurricane-plagued Caribbean waters in 2007, he said.
But the company's growing international strategy does play into the cruise line's future.
Packages for European cruises coupled with a side trip to Disneyland Paris are on the way, he said.
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The Disney Magic will depart from Barcelona, Spain in the summer of 2007 and will stop at the following ports:
Palermo, Sicily
Naples, Italy, with access to Pompeii
Olbia, Sardinia
Civitavecchia, Italy,
with access to RomeLa Spezia, Italy, with access to Florence and Pisa
Marseille, France
Villefranche, France
Disney cruises can be booked in advance by subscribers to Lets-Travel-Rome.com through the following link, and by choosing the "Cruises" tab at the top of the page:
Holidays in Rome
Catholic Church marks anniversary of John Paul II's death.
Pope Benedict XVI recalled Sunday John Paul II's "immense heritage" and his ability to "touch the hearts of people" as Catholics in Rome and across the globe commemorated the first anniversary of the death of the late pontiff.
"On April 2 of last year, just like today, our beloved Pope John Paul II was living in these same hours the final stage of his earthly pilgrimage, a pilgrimage of faith, love and hope that has left a profound mark on the history of the Church and humanity," Benedict told scores of faithful gathered in St. Peter's Square.
"His heritage is immense," Benedict said, recalling his predecessor's many travels and his famous rallying cry to the faithful, pronounced shortly after his election of October 16, 1978: "Open wide the doors to Christ." The anniversary was marked with special Masses held in Roman Catholic churches in Italy and around the world.
In Karol Wojtyla's native Poland, millions of faithful gathered at religious services held Sunday throughout the country. Scores of pilgrims have been thronging the southern city of Krakow, the late pope's former diocese, and Wadowice, the pope's birth place, since Friday.
Addressing a congregation in Krakow, Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, the city's current bishop and former long-standing private secretary to Pope John Paul, called on people to remember the pontiff with "love and gratitude."
In Rome, as many as 300,000 pilgrims were converging on a St. Peter's square basking in sunshine ahead of a rosary recital and evening prayer vigil with Benedict XVI. The pope was to give a short speech at 9.37 p.m., the exact time of his predecessor's death a year ago.
Almost 2,000 volunteers and a large police presence was at hand to assist the pilgrims, hand out bottles of water and ensure that the proceedings went smoothly. Many of the pilgrims, like Malgorzata Polak, came from Poland after enduring long journeys across Europe by bus.
"I arrived in Rome three days ago after spending 30 hours on a bus. It is very important for me to be here today. John Paul was like a second father to me. I loved him," Polak, a young travel agent told Deutsche Presse-Agentur, dpa, Polish flags and banners hailing Poland's Solidarnosc (Solidarity) trade union waving behind her.
Michal Dankiewicz, a 15-year-old from southern Poland, was in Rome for the first time to honour his celebrated compatriot.
Asked why he thought John Paul was so great, Dankiewicz said: "Because he spoke to young people and taught us how big God's love is for us all." Long queues have been forming for days at John Paul's tomb in a grotto beneath St. Peter's Basilica, with many people leaving notes with intercessions and prayers. Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi also paid a private visit to the crypt on Sunday morning.
The late pontiff died of septic shock and an irreversible cardiovascular collapse at 9.37 p.m. on April 2, 2005, some 70 hours after his already fragile health had suddenly deteriorated as a result of an infection to the urinary tract. He was 84 and had been suffering from Parkinson's disease for more than 10 years.
According to a recent book co-authored by his personal doctor, Renato Buzzonetti, John Paul, speaking in Polish with a weak voice, had told his aides on the morning of April 2 to "let me go to God" before entering a coma at about seven in the evening. "He never displayed his physical suffering thereby giving our epoch, which conceals bodily decay, illness and death almost as though they were scandalous an extraordinary lesson," said Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro Valls ahead of Sunday's celebrations.
The anniversary has prompted the publication in Italy of a flurry of films, DVDs and magazines honouring the man who guided the Roman Catholic Church for more than 26 years and who could soon be admitted into the canon of saints.
The process leading to his beatification has been proceeding speedily, with about 100 witnesses, some of whom knew Wojtyla since his youth, heard by Vatican officials over the past six months.
Under canon law the church must prove that John Paul worked a miracle before it can beatify him. Only then can it search for evidence of another miracle required for canonization.
Pilgrims were expected to return to the square on Monday afternoon for a special anniversary Mass led by Benedict.
© 2006 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur
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