It is the longest journey of Pope Benedict XVI, both as period and distance. To reach Australia, the land in which the World Youth Day is being celebrated from 13th to 21st July, the Pope is leaving on Saturday, 12th July, and will travel for over twenty hours by plane, crossing ten time zones. With that information, Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican press room, commented this morning, with the journalists, the programme for the apostolic journey of Benedict XVI to Sidney, on the occasion of the World Youth Day 2008. The Pope goes to Australia for the first time. However, two of his predecessors had already been to that country: Paul VI and John Paul II. The latest went there for two times in 1986 and 1995, on the occasion of the beatification of Mary MacKillop. It is the second WYD of Benedict XVI, after the one lived in Cologne in 2005. The papal flight will go on with no interruptions for fifteen hours, until refuelling in Darwin, then it will leave again and go to Sidney, where the Pope is going to be welcomed on Sunday, at 3 pm (without nevertheless any formal speeches) by political and religious authorities. Immediately afterwards, the Pope will go to a private residence supplied by the Opus Dei, where Benedict XVI will spend three days of private stay, in which he will relax and prepare for the following days. (To be continued)
