NEWS & VIEWS
from a CATHOLIC perspective

    VATICAN (CWNews.com) -- The Vatican has made public the schedule for the November trip by Pope John Paul II to India and Georgia.

    The Holy Father will arrive in New Delhi in the evening on November 5, and spend the night there without any public appointments. The following day, he will make a courtesy call at the presidential palace that evening. After meeting with the country's political leaders, he will travel to the tomb of Mohandas Gandhi, which he also visited on his first visit to India in February 1986.

    That evening, November 6, at a ceremony in the New Delhi cathedral which will involve bishops from all around the continent, the Pope will sign the apostolic exhortation reflecting the conclusions of the Synod assembly, which met in Rome during April and May of 1998. The next day he will formally close the Synod, with a Mass at a public stadium in New Delhi.

    After that ceremony, the Holy Father will meet with leaders of other religious groups n New Delhi: the final item on his agenda for the visit to India.

    On his return trip to Rome, the Pope will stop on November 8 in Tbilisi, the capital of the former Soviet republic of Georgia. There he will meet with the Orthodox Patriarch Georgie II and members of the Orthodox synod, then travel to the cathedral in Mtshkheta, about a half-hour's drive from the capital.

    On November 9 the Pope will bless a house for the poor built by Caritas, the Catholic charity, in Tbilisi. Then he will celebrate Mass in city square for the city's small Catholic population. In the afternoon he will meet with Georgian President Edouard Shevardnadze, and later with cultural and scientific leaders, before departing for Rome.

    The visit to Georgia will be the Pope's second trip to a country where the population is primarily Orthodox. (The first was his May trip to Romania.) Only about 2 percent of Georgia's population is Catholic.

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