A visit which will "touch just two cities: Washington and New York", but which "means to spiritually embrace all the Catholics who live in the United States". This is how the Pope defined his eighth apostolic journey outside Italy, in a video-message to the "dear brothers and sisters of the United States of America", presented in the Vatican Newsroom today. "It’s just a few days to my apostolic journey to your beloved country said Benedict XVI and before I leave I wish to send you a friendly greeting and an invitation to pray". The Holy Father wishes that the visit to the USA "may be received as an expression of fraternity with every ecclesial community and as a token of friendship with all the believers and all the men and women of good will. The Lord Resurrected entrusted to the Apostles and to the Church His Gospel of love and peace, so that it might be taken to all the peoples". Thanking the "many people who have been working for some time already, both within the church and in other spheres, to prepare my journey", the Pope told them: "I am deeply grateful to you, because I believe that without the strength of prayer, without the intimate union with the Lord, our human initiatives would not be worth much. It is God who saves us, the world and history, and I am coming, sent by Jesus Christ, to take His life-giving Word".
