FRANCIS PRAYS BEFORE TOMB OF BLESSED JOHN PAUL II

Vatican City, 3 April 2013 (VIS) – On the eighth anniversary of the death of Blessed John Paul II yesterday, Pope Francis visited his tomb in St. Peter's Basilica. The Holy Father—accompanied by Cardinal Angelo Comastri, archpriest of the Vatican Basilica, and Monsignor Alfred Xuereb, his personal secretary—prayed for a long while before Blessed John Paul II's tomb in the St. Sebastian Chapel and then also stopped at the tombs of Blessed John XXIII and St. Pius X.

“Like his visit to the tomb of St. Peter and the Vatican Grottoes,” reads a note from the Press Office of the Holy See, “this afternoon's visit to the Basilica expresses the profound spiritual continuity of the Petrine Ministry of the Popes that Francis lives and feels intensely. This is also evident in the meeting and the frequent phone calls with his predecessor, Benedict XVI.”