With Easter nearly here, Catholic Americans are looking ahead to the next major Church event in the United States: Pope Benedict XVI's April 15-20 visit to Washington, D.C., and New York City.
Unlike Pope John Paul II, whose visits to the United States were marathons of mega-gatherings in which millions were able to participate (I went to Pope John Paul's Masses in Boston Common in 1979 and San Francisco in 1987), Pope Benedict has limited his schedule basically to two cities and two public events a day.
There's been huge interest in dioceses around the country in participating in the papal events, but only a very small percentage of the nation's Catholics, selected in most cases by lottery, will be able to go.
So here's the deal: Our team here at Our Sunday Visitor will do our best to bring Pope Benedict to you.
I'll be coordinating our coverage onsite in Washington and New York, and we'll have two additional journalists on the ground in both places.
We'll be posting our coverage live to our website: www.osv.com/papalvisit.
I'll also be blogging here from a "man on the street" perspective. Russell Shaw, our contributing editor in Washington, will also be blogging (his first time!), as will Mary DeTurris Poust, our contributing editor in New York (and an experienced blogger).
What would you like to tell Pope Benedict if you had the chance? (And if possible, please identify yourself by age, occupation and location.) I look forward to publishing some of your responses in coming issues of Our Sunday Visitor newsweekly.
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