Right after landing at the Minsk National Airport, where he was met by a guard of honor, the cardinal headed for a center for children with cancer, which is funded by international Catholic charity Caritas International and is located near Minsk, Alyaksandr Amyalchenya, spokesman for the Conference of Catholic Bishops in Belarus.According to the foreign ministry’s press office, while in Belarus, Msgr. Bertone, the highest-ranking Vatican official ever to have visited Belarus, is expected to meet with Alyaksandr Lukashenka; Foreign Minister Syarhey Martynaw; Leanid Hulyaka, the government’s commissioner on religious and ethnic affairs; and Patriarchal Exarch Filaret, the top Orthodox clergyman in Belarus.
The cardinal is expected to deliver a lecture to students and professors at Belarusian State University about the relationship between science and religion, lead a mass in the Cathedral Church of the Most Holy Virgin Mary in Minsk, and visit Minsk’s Serabranka neighborhood to consecrate the cornerstone of the St. John the Baptist Church, which will be the first Catholic church to be built in the city since 1910.
The cardinal is also to visit Hrodna and Pinsk, meet with members of the Conference of Catholic Bishops in Belarus and believers at Minsk’s St. Simon and St. Helena Church, lay flowers at the World War II obelisk on Minsk’s Victory Square, and give a news conference.
Msgr. Bertone first visited Belarus in August 1997, when he was secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
One of the highest-ranking officials in the Roman Catholic Church, Msgr. Bertone is responsible for the most important political and diplomatic affairs in the Holy See.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Disclaimer
No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Clerical Whispers’ for any or all of the articles placed here.
The placing of an article hereupon does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
Sotto Voce