In Brief

Italian leader first to make visit to Pope
ITALIAN President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi was the first head of state to have a private audience with Pope Benedict XVI.
Mr Ciampi and his wife, Franca, who had been close to Pope John Paul II, already met the new Pope after his installation Mass, but returned for a special audience on Tuesday. The pair invited the Pope to visit their official residence.
Beatification delegated
MOTHER Marianne Cope of Molokai may be beatified this month, but Pope Benedict will not celebrate the beatification Mass, according to an Italian newspaper.
The Italian daily, Il Giornale, reported that Pope Benedict had delegated Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins, prefect of the Congregation for Saints’ Causes, to preside over the beatification. Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Vatican secretary of state, informed Bishop James Moynihan of Syracuse, New York, of the decision, the paper claimed.
Pope makes pilgrimage
POPE BENEDICT XVI paid a private visit to the tomb of the late pontiff exactly a month after John Paul died.
The Pope said Mass early on Monday in his private chapel, concelebrating with Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz, Pope John Paul’s long-time private secretary.
In the evening Pope Benedict went alone and knelt in prayer before Pope John Paul’s tomb in the underground grotto area of St Peter’s Basilica
Ad limina visits resume
THE BISHOPS of Sri Lanka were the first to have a personal meeting with Benedict XVI on the occasion of their five-yearly visit to the Holy See.
The last bishops to make ad limina visits to Pope John Paul II were from Tanzania. They visited the Pope on March 11 in the Gemelli Polyclinic in Rome.
The ad limina visit of a group of Spanish bishops was interrupted by John Paul II’s hospitalisation.