Monsignor García-Gasco invites Bishops from all over the world (03-01-2006)

VALENCIA The Archbishop of Valencia, Monsignor Agustín García-Gasco, has started sending invitations, written personally by the Prelate, to more than 4000 titled Bishops from all the diocese of the Catholic Church across the five continents for the 5th World Meeting of the Families (WMF), convoked by the Pope in Valencia from 1st to 9th next July.

In the invitations, Monsignor García-Gasco encourages all the Bishops to participate in the WMF and in the closing Mass of the events on Sunday 9th July in Valencia where Benedict XVI will preside, sources of the Organization of the WMF have indicated to the local agency AVAN.

To date, the invitations have been sent to all the Bishops in Europe and in America and shortly others will be sent to the Heads of the Diocese of Africa, Asia and The Australian Continent.

On 3rd December, Benedict XVI personally encouraged all the episcopal associations, diocese and Catholic movements of the world to "participate in such an important ecclesiastical event", in reference to the WMF in Valencia where more than one and a half million people are expected to attend, according to the same sources.

The Pontiff himself will travel to the Valencian capital next July where he will stay for "at least two days, Saturday 8th and Sunday 9th", to preside over the final acts of the 5th World Meeting of the Families, confirmed the Archbishop of Valencia at the end of the solemn mass for the patron saint Virgin Mary, at the Valencian Cathedral on 8th December.

AVAN