At audience, pope speaks on mobile phone, dons fire chief's helmet

Published: 2005-06-15

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- At his June 15 general audience, Pope Benedict XVI talked to more than 20,000 people in St. Peter's Square, but he also spoke to someone on a mobile phone. A middle-aged man in a wheelchair, who was among dozens of people led up to the pope at the end of the audience, handed Pope Benedict a mobile phone and asked him to talk. The pope did so. Officials at the Vatican press office and in the Prefecture of the Pontifical Household could provide no information about who was on the other end of the phone or what Pope Benedict said. ANSA, the Italian news agency, reported that the call was made to a nun who was sick.

Copyright (c) 2005 Catholic News Service /U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The CNS news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed, including but not limited to such means as framing or any other digital copying or distribution method, in whole or in part without the prior written authority of Catholic News Service .