Rorate Caeli

Bishopess and Joint Blessing in Erfurt

The "programme/missalette" with the main events of the Pope's visit to his homeland next week is up in the Vatican website - it includes almost all words that will be pronounced, except for the homilies and addresses.

The "Ecumenical Celebration of the Word of God" (pages 69-80), a paraliturgical event that will take place in the "Evangelical Augustinian Monastery" in Erfurt, Thuringia, in which the great heresiarch lived and which was stolen by the "Reformers", is a sad reminder of all that is empty and meaningless in the post-Conciliar world that the Bishops beyond the Rhine tried to create.

It will be jointly presided by His Holiness and by President Schneider (Nikolaus Schneider, President of the Evangelical Church in Rhineland). The general intercessions will be led by a Lutheran "Bishopess", Ilse Junkermann (pictured above), who will also introduce the Our Father. In the end, President Schneider and the Pope will give the blessing (two separate ones, Schneider's being the usual Lutheran version of the Aaronic Priestly Blessing).