Pope prepares historic meet with predecessor
Worldwide, Daily news | ankakh | March 23, 2013 23:32
Pope Francis prepared to go face to face with his predecessor Benedict XVI on Saturday in a historic meeting between two men with very different styles but important core similarities.
The Argentine pope was expected to take a helicopter from the Vatican landing at around 1115 GMT at the papal residence of Castel Gandolfo near Rome where the “pope emeritus” has been living since his resignation last month.
The meeting between a pope and a former pope is believed to be a first for the Catholic Church as Latin America’s first pontiff embarks on a papacy fraught with challenges that sometimes overshadowed Benedict’s reign.
Benedict has been staying at the lakeside estate since he became the first pope to resign in more than 700 years and the Vatican said he followed television news coverage of Francis’s momentous conclave election last week.
The two have known each other for a long time. At the 2005 conclave, Bergoglio was the main rival to Ratzinger and represented a more socially progressive current among the cardinals. But he pulled out of the race.
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