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.

During the lunch, held inside the Vatican’s main audience hall, Benedict told his guests about the virtues of Mother Teresa, who dedicated her life to serving the sick and poor.

“To those who ask why Mother Teresa was famous, the answer is easy: she lived her life in a humble and hidden way, for the love of God and in love with God.”

The feast included lasagna with homemade Bolognese sauce, veal chunks with roasted potatoes, traditional yellow Christmas cake with chocolate bits and Chantilly cream, and coffee.

Before the meal, Benedict delivered his traditional Sunday blessing from his studio window, denouncing Christmas Day attacks on the faithful in the Philippines and Nigeria and a suicide bombing in Pakistan that killed 45 people at an aid centre.

“Once again, the earth is stained by blood,” he lamented.

A bomb exploded during Christmas Mass at a police camp chapel in the southern Philippines, wounding a priest and 10 churchgoers. Also on Saturday, six people died in attacks by Muslim sect members on churches in northern Nigeria.

Benedict noted that the Sunday after Christmas traditionally celebrates the family, taking the birth of Jesus as its cue. Underlining his rejection of gay marriage and abortion, the Pope stressed that every child deserves a mother and a father who will love them and welcome them as a gift.