Pope's first trip to Spain to include nighttime vigil, morning Mass

Published: 2006-06-12

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI's first trip to Spain will include a festive, nighttime vigil and morning Mass with families from all over the world as well as meetings with Spain's bishops, the Spanish royal family and Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. The pope will visit the Mediterranean port city of Valencia July 8-9 to help close the Fifth World Meeting of Families. More than 1.5 million people are expected to be in Valencia for the families meeting, which will run July 1-9. During his brief, but busy journey, the pope will visit Valencia's Gothic cathedral and the city's ultramodern City of the Arts and the Sciences center where the international families meeting will be held. This will mark the pope's third foreign trip and his second that had already been planned by Pope John Paul II. The late pope, who called the first World Meeting of Families at the Vatican in 1994, had announced in 2003 that the 2006 meeting would be held in Valencia. Families from six continents will meet to discuss "Transmitting the Faith in the Family."

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