Pope invites 250 poor people for Vatican lunch

LASAGNA, veal and cake were on the menu yesterday as Pope Benedict XVI invited about 250 poor people to join him for a post-Christmas lunch and denounced as “absurd” new attacks on the faithful around the globe.

Also joining the Pope and his guests were 250 nuns, seminarians and priests of Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity order, which runs soup kitchens around Rome.

Last year, Benedict travelled to a Rome soup kitchen to join the poor for lunch after Christmas. This year he wanted to invite them to his home and to pay homage to Mother Teresa, whose birth centenary is celebrated this year.