People from ethnic cultures of other parts of the world, ranging from Asia and the Americas to Africa and Europe, will display their diversity at the farewell ceremony when Pope Benedict XVI concludes his apostolic journey to New York at Kennedy International Airport Sunday evening, April 20.

Prayers in various languages, persons wearing the traditional garb of their native countries and a gift from the Diocese of Brooklyn to the Holy Father presented by four youngsters representing foreign lands will permeate the program, said Father Anthony M. Hernandez, who is coordinating the papal events at the airport.

“This will be a multicultural event, as requested by Bishop (Nicholas) DiMarzio, who asked that it reflect the ethnic diversity of the metropolitan area,” he said.

PAPAL TREE: Father Michael T. Martine, a canon law professor at St. Joseph’s Seminary in Yonkers, stands next to a tree that was planted by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger during a visit to the seminary in 1988. As Pope Benedict XVI, the former cardinal returns to St. Joseph’s April 19 during his April 15-20 trip to the U.S.

Four elementary school-age children will present the diocesan gift to Pope Benedict. They represent families whose forebears came to this country from Germany, Ecuador, Trinidad and Korea.

Fifteen hundred representatives of more than 20 ethnic apostolates of the Diocese will be represented in the audience at the departure ceremony. Among them will be Filipinos, Poles, Brazilians, Nigerians, Croatians, Ghanaians and Vietnamese.

Father Hernandez said Bishop DiMarzio’s desire was for the guests to participate in a prayerful buildup to the Holy Father’s arrival.

In light of that, the departure ceremony, which is scheduled to begin at 8 p.m., will follow a program of prayer, including a Scriptural multilingual recitation of the Glorious Mysteries of the Rosary, and religious and classical music performed by more than 200 singers and musicians.

The Rosary will be recited in 23 languages, including Mandarin and Cantonese Chinese, Gaelic, Italian, Spanish, Arabic, Romanian and Urdu.

Pope Benedict will address the more than 3,000 guests, as will a representative of the White House whose name has not been announced. Bishop DiMarzio will be the master of ceremonies. Edward Cardinal Egan will be among the ecclesiastical dignitaries who will attend.

The Bishop and other members of the hierarchy will come to the airport ceremony from Yankee Stadium, where the Holy Father will celebrate Mass before 57,000 of the faithful.

Close-Up Opportunities

Although security will be tight and tickets limited by the size of the venues that will host Pope Benedict XVI, careful arrangements have been made to allow him to interact with as many New Yorkers as possible during the visit, said Cardinal Edward M. Egan of New York.

The cardinal made the comments in a recent hour-long interview with Catholic New York, the archdiocesan newspaper.

One of those “close-up” opportunities with him will be at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, where people will be on the steps awaiting his arrival April 19.

Cardinal Egan, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and cathedral rector Msgr. Robert T. Ritchie will greet the pontiff’s car and walk with him up the steps to the main bronze doors, where he likely will turn to wave and offer a blessing to the crowds gathered on nearby streets before entering the cathedral.

The pope will walk up the center aisle to the sanctuary; he will walk along the side aisles for the processional and recessional of the Mass. The congregation will be made up of about 2,800 priests, deacons, religious from New York and around the country, including clergy from the Diocese of Brooklyn.

That afternoon the pope will greet about 50 young people with disabilities and their caregivers in the Chapel of SS. Peter and Paul at St. Joseph’s Seminary in the Dunwoodie section of Yonkers. As he approaches the chapel, seminarians will be lined up at either side of the entrance as he walks in.

Inside the chapel, the disabled youths – many of whom will be in wheelchairs – will be in the center aisle and their caregivers in the first row of pews, which face the center aisle. The pope will go up and down the center aisle greeting the youths. Then he will board his popemobile to make his way around the seminary building to the grounds at the rear where he will be greeted by a cheering crowd of more than 26,000 young people.

Besides the teenagers and young adults in archdiocesan schools and religious education, campus ministry and youth programs, the crowd will include seminarians from St. Joseph’s and other seminaries in the country.

After welcoming the pope, a group of young people will present him with gifts that include an “I Love New York” T-shirt, said Catherine T. Hickey, archdiocesan education secretary.

At ground zero the next morning, the pope will be driven part of the way down to the site on a specially built ramp and then will walk the rest of the way to stand where almost 3,000 people perished on Sept. 11, 2001.

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