The archpriest of the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls presented events for the June '08-June '09 Pauline Year, including the issuing of a €2 coin by the Governorate of Vatican City State.Cardinal Andrea Cordero Lanza di Montezemolo and other basilica officials presented the schedule today at a conference in the Vatican press office.
The Pauline Year, called by Benedict XVI in 2007, will run from June 28, 2008, to June 29, 2009. It will commemorate the second millennium of the birth of St. Paul.
The cardinal noted activities ranging from a rediscovery of the apostle through rereading his letters to a pilgrimage to his tomb. The year's activities aim to revitalize faith and encourage prayer and work for Christian unity.
Scheduled activities include a pastoral program (with daily ordinary and extraordinary liturgical celebrations, meetings for prayer and the sacrament of penance) and a cultural-artistic program (with exhibitions, publications, postage stamps, the coining of a special medal, and the issue of a stamp and a €2 coin by the Governorate of Vatican City State).
Cardinal Cordero Lanza di Montezemolo also focused on the ecumenical elements of the Pauline Year program. He noted that the chapel currently used as the baptistery, located between the basilica and the cloister of St. Paul Outside the Walls, will become an "Ecumenical Chapel, maintaining its characteristic baptismal font but designated as a place in which to offer our Christian brethren a special place for prayer, either within their own groups [...] or together with Catholics, without the celebration of the sacraments."
This chapel will also be used to house the remains of St. Timothy of Antioch and of other unknown fourth-century martyrs, which were discovered in the hypogeum of St. Paul during restoration work on the basilica in 2006.
A Web site detailing events for the Pauline Year will soon be available in English.
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