VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Francis will attend a prayer service in late April in commemoration of the “new martyrs” of the past two centuries.
He will also visit the Italian port city of Genova, ordain new priests and travel to Egypt and Portugal this spring, according to a list of liturgical celebrations he is scheduled to preside over in April and May. The Vatican released the schedule April 12.
The Vatican announced that the pope will celebrate the Liturgy of the Word with the lay Community of Sant’Egidio April 22 in the Church of St. Bartholomew on Rome’s small Tiber Island “in memory of the ‘new martyrs’ of the 20th- and 21st-centuries.”
St. Bartholomew is not a parish church but is used by the Sant’Egidio community. The church also serves as an ecumenical shrine to 20th-century martyrs of communism, Nazism and Latin American dictatorships and to more recent martyrs of terrorism.
The other liturgical events scheduled for the spring:
— The pope will hold a consistory April 20 with cardinals present in Rome to formally approve the canonizations of two of the children who saw Mary in Fatima, a large group of Brazilian martyrs, three child martyrs from Mexico and two priests.
— The pope will make an apostolic trip to Egypt April 28-29.
— The pope will ordain a group of men to the priesthood in St. Peter’s Basilica May 7, the day the World Day of Prayer for Vocations is observed.
— The pope travels to Fatima, Portugal, May 12-13 to mark the 100th anniversary of the Marian apparitions there.
— The pope makes a pastoral visit to Genova May 27.
