BRATISLAVA, January 16, (WEBNOVINY) — Speaker of the Slovak Parliament Pavol Hrusovsky plans to personally repeat the invitation to visit Slovakia to Pope Benedict XVI. Hrusovsky will officially meet the Pope during his visit to Italy and the Holy See, for which he departs on Tuesday. “I consider it proper to personally confirm the importance of the invitation,” Hrusovsky told SITA on Monday. According to him, an official meeting with the Holy Father is something exceptional. “I want to assure him that Slovakia would be happy if the Holy Father could visit our country and encourage us spiritually, morally, our Christianity, so that we could live our lives in the values which guarantee certainty,” added Hrusovsky.
The Holy See did still neither confirmed nor denied that Pope Benedict XVI would visit Slovakia later this year. Slovak bishops invited the Pope to visit the country this year when the Year of Saints Cyril and Methodius in order to celebrate the 1150th anniversary of their arrival to Great Moravia in 863 A.D. is to begin. The bishops invited Pope Benedict XVI to visit Bratislava, Nitra, Zilina and Presov. According to the invitation, he could visit the country on July 3 – 5. In addition, President Ivan Gasparovic invited him as well.
Autumn of 2012 is also being considered as a possible date of the Pope’s visit as this would also depend on stability of the political situation after early election in March this year as well as on his health. Benedict XVI was also invited to visit Ukraine, which could also influence the decision whether he would or would not visit Slovakia, as the Pope never visit two neighboring countries in one year.
SITA