Many thousands are expected to attend the weekly Wednesday audience given by Pope Benedict at the Vatican this morning. It will be one of his last.
At 4pm Irish time, he will celebrate the Ash Wednesday Mass in St Peter’s Basilica. Vatican sources were saying last night it would “probably be his last major liturgical event”.
This Mass was originally scheduled to take place at the Santa Sabina Basilica, on Rome’s Aventine Hill, but was changed to St Peter’s following Benedict’s announcement on Monday that he is to resign the papacy.
What form that resignation will take was not clear in Rome last night though there is growing agreement that a major audience at St Peter’s Square on Wednesday, February 27th, will most likely be the final public event of Benedict XVI’s papacy.
Protocol
Issues of protocol as to how he will be addressed as a former pope are still being worked out. A conclave to elect a new pope may not begin before 15 days have elapsed following the death of an incumbent.
As there is no death in this case, informed speculation at the Vatican last night indicated that it may be possible for the conclave to begin closer to the date of Benedict’s resignation.
One Irish man caught up in Monday’s maelstrom and its aftermath is Dublin priest Msgr Paul Tighe, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications.
The council has been handling Pope Benedict’s Twitter account since it was launched before Christmas.
“All tweets are approved by the pope in advance but he doesn’t tweet himself,” Msgr Tighe said yesterday.
He too was “taken very much by surprise” on hearing of Pope Benedict’s announcement last Monday. It was not tweeted in advance. Msgr Tighe felt this was “to keep the element of surprise”, which it did.
Social media
There had been great interest in the events of this week among those using social media, he said.The council has launched ThePope App on iPhones and hopes to have it available for android systems before the end of the month.
