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Turin, 3 October 2000 During the week between Monday 25 September and Sunday 1 October, 121.656 pilgrims walked before the Shroud. 588.109 pilgrims have come to see the Exposition in the days between its opening and 1 October. However, we should also consider 150.000 people more, who walked in the Duomo through its main entrance to see the Shroud from afar. 122.144 people are expected to visit the Exposition of the Shroud next week, although we should remember that many reservations are usually made last minute. A total of 904.859 reservations were made before 1 October, at 4 p.m.., for the whole period of the Exposition, while 76.595 reservations were made in the week from 25 September to 1 October.
The day for people with disabilities “Why should we visit the Shroud today? Why this image of a suffering Christ can give us the strength and help us, since we carry a cross every day”. This was Teresa’s reaction at the end of her pilgrimage, she is a guest at Cottolengo, in Torino, and she has been on a wheelchair for over 50 years. With her 1.630 people with disabilities visited the Exposition on Wednesday 27 September, taking the shortcut that starts from Palazzo Reale. Among them about a thousand guests of Cottolengo communities of Piedmont, they met in front of the linen to live together a special jubilee day. In the three Wednesdays when visits for people with disabilities were organised, about 500 people took advantage of the wheelchair service offered by the volunteers of Associazione Santa Maria, Oftal and Unitalsi. About 1.500 people visited the Exposition on the short path. The bus service offered by Sisport did 21 trips -up to date- to pick up and bring back about 50 people with disabilities. Moreover, volunteers have assisted about 180 blind people during their visit to the life size model in the room that precedes the Exposition. The care organisers of the Exposition put into the services that were offered is not limited to the Wednesday’s visits. Every day at the entrance of the regular path there are about 15 wheelchairs and dozens of volunteers take turns in helping those who need to be accompanied through the Exposition. This service was really helpful, even more than the one organised for Wednesdays. 1.676 pilgrims have seen the Shroud on a wheelchair on the regular path, until 1 October. The average is 35 wheelchair-help services a day.
V.I.P. visitors “The Shroud is a good sing for the unity between Catholic and Orthodox Christans”. Card. Angelo Sodano, pontifical Secretary of State, concluded his visit to the Shroud on Tuesday 26 September with these words. The Cardinal came from Asti, where he celebrated 50 years as a priest, he was greeted in Torino by archbishop Poletto and then started the path of the pilgrims in the late morning: in the Royal Gardens he meet a Polish group and he blessed them in their own language. He was accompanied by mons. Giuseppe Ghiberti (president of the Diocesan Commission for the Exposition). Cardinal Sodano walked near the Shroud in deep thought, stopping on the three meditative stations located in the rooms that precede the main room of the Exposition. When he was close to the Shroud he wanted to pray first alone and then speaking loudly. Among last week’s visitors, on Friday 29 September, cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi, archbishop of Genova. “Every dioceses cannot avoid to feel the need to seize this providential occasion, to be able to look with eyes of faith and love the linen that, in the Jubilee Year, shows again the signs of love and suffering of Christ”; this was the comment of the Cardinal at the end of his visit of the Exposition, where he took 300 pilgrims of his dioceses. “In front of the Shroud, said the Cardinal, I wondered what leads so many people , who are far from faith, to come to Torino, and I thought that the image on the linen is the highest interpretation of somebody who feels the weight of suffering on himself but also the need to search for faith and love”. The dioceses of Asti and Casale Monferrato passed before the Shroud in the afternoon, 750 and 200 pilgrims led by their bishops, mons. Francesco Ravinale and mons. Germano Zaccheo.
EVENTS Don Benzi: «Crucifixes today» Over 300 people listened to don Oreste Benzi’s speech on Thursday 28 September in Duomo, in front of the Shroud. He is the founder of the Associazione Comunità Papa Giovanni XXIII and his speech was about “the Shroud as and icon of suffering: crucifixes of today” and it was the first of a series of lectures on the Shroud. The next one will take place on Monday 9 October (card. Carlo Maria Martini, archbishop of Milan) and Thurday 12 October (card. Ersilio Tonini, archbishop of Ravenna). Mons. Severino Paletto greeted the archbishops with his auxiliary mons. Pier Giorgio Micchiardi, and mons. Giuseppe Ghiberti, president of the Diocesan Commission for the Exposition of the Shroud. Standing before the signs of human sufferings that involve every day thousands of people, the lonely, the elderly, abandoned children, girls slaves of prostitution.
Films on Jesus’ life for the pilgrims of the Exposition On Sunday 1 October the series of movies called “Jesus in cinema - comparisons with the Shroud” and organised by the Exposition Committe started in the Archivio di Stato (piazza Mollino). On Sunday 1 October “The King of Kings”, mute, 1927, by Cecil B. De Mille; on Monday 2: “Matthew’s Gospel” by Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1964; Tuesday 3 “The Greatest story ever told” by George Stevens, 1965. Wednesday 4 “The messiah” by Roberto Rossellini, 1975. On 5 and 6, in two parts, “Jesus of Nazareth” by Franco Zeffirelli, 1977. On Saturday 7 and Sunday 8 «Jesus Christ Superstar» by Norman Jewison, 1973. The movies will start at 5 pm on Saturdays and Sundays and at 16.30 on weekdays. The entrance is free until there are seats available.
Comitato per l’Ostensione solenne della Sindone e per l'anno
giubilare 2000 |
