News of Future Papal Visit

Rene Giuliano, Vicar-General of Monaco, has confirmed that His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI will visit the principality, sometime in the first half of 2012. The Vicar-General said, "It's more or less sure, unless there's something major, like the Pope falling ill". This statement was prompted by rumors that the Pope would be visiting next year which sparked even more whispers that the Pontiff might be set to officiate at the wedding of Prince Albert II and Charlene Wittstock. It is hard to imagine that anyone would believe that but was evidently a story that was 'making the rounds'. However, a papal visit of any sort will be a very happy occasion for Monaco, one of the very few officially Roman Catholic monarchies left in the world. Talk of the Pope performing the wedding ceremony was obviously silly, that is not something popes commonly do and given the Prince's rather 'colorful' years as a bachelor for the Pontiff to preside at his wedding would be unthinkable. That does not, of course, take away from the importance of the occasion with the marriage set to be *the* wedding event of 2011 -at least until the news came out that Prince William and Kate Middleton will be marrying on a date set prior to that of the Prince of Monaco. On a historical note Pope Paul III was the first Supreme Pontiff to visit the Principality of Monaco.