AZG DAILY #238, 26-12-2009

Religion

Update: 2009-12-26 01:29:09 (GMT +04:00)

POPE DELIVERS CHRISTMAS BLESSING AFTER FALL

Pope Benedict XVI delivered his traditional Christmas Day blessing
Friday, looking tired and unsteady but otherwise fine hours after
being knocked down by a woman who jumped the barrier at the start of
Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, AP reported.

The Vatican said the 82-year-old Benedict was unhurt in the fall and
that his busy Christmas schedule would remain unchanged.

French Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, an 87-year-old Vatican diplomat,
fractured his hip in the commotion and will be operated on at Rome’s
Gemelli hospital, Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi said.

Benedict appeared a bit unsteady Friday as he approached his chair on
the loggia overlooking St. Peter’s Square to deliver his traditional
Christmas blessing and was steadied by an attendant.

But he then spread open his arms, blessed the crowd and delivered his
"Urbi et Orbi" speech, Latin for "To the city and the world," without
any problem. He followed with Christmas greetings in 65 different
languages that drew sustained cheers and chants from the crowd.

In the speech, the pope decried the effects of the world financial
crisis, conflicts in the Holy Land and Africa, and the plight of the
"tiny flock" of Christians in Iraq.

"At times it is subject to violence and injustice, but it remains
determined to make its own contribution to the building of a society
opposed to the logic of conflict and the rejection of one’s neighbor,"
he said.

Lombardi identified the woman who toppled Benedict as Susanna Maiolo,
25, a Swiss-Italian national with psychiatric problems. He said
Maiolo, who was not armed, was taken to a clinic for necessary
treatment.

She was the same woman involved in a similar incident at last year’s
Midnight Mass, Vatican officials said. In that case, Maiolo jumped the
barricade but never managed to reach the pope and was quietly tackled
to the ground by security.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress