Santiago Creel Miranda, Minister of Government, confirmed the invitation at the meeting of the Mexican bishops’ conference being held this week in Lago de Guadalupe.
Protocol establishes that the president of the republic must send an official invitation to the Pope, if he is to visit the country, in his capacity as representative of Vatican City State. This formality has been fulfilled with the invitation that Creel Miranda sent to the Vatican Secretariat of State.
The government official said that preparations for the Pontiff’s sixth visit to Mexico are well under way.
In statements to the Catholic newspaper El Observador, Archbishop Emeritus Arturo Antonio Szymanski of San Luis Potosi, who had a private audience with the Pope on March 27, said that John Paul II very much hopes to attend the event in Guadalajara, although it will depend on his health and the advice of his doctors.
