(7 Nov 09 - RV) Pope Benedict XVI’s 17^th pastoral journey in Italy takes him Sunday November 8^th to the Northern Italian city of Brescia.

Everything is ready in Brescia, Concesio and Botticino Serafor the arrival of Pope Benedict XVI Sunday in his first pastoral visit to the land of Paul VI, thirty years after his death.

Situated at the foot of the Alps, in the province of Lombardy, Brescia is home to one an a half million people and steep in the Christian tradition counting among its most famous citizens, Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini who became Pope Paul VI.

The city’s central square is named after the Pope who guided the work of the second Vatican Council after the death of John 23^rd.

Here on Sunday Pope Benedict will celebrate mass. Organisers estimate a crowd of thousands and have mounted four giant screens to allow those who are unable to find space in the small cathedral to follow the Eucharistic celebration and Angelus prayer.
Sunday afternoon Pope Benedict travels the short distance from Brescia to the village of Concesio in Valtrompia, the birthplace of his predecessor.
There he will inaugurate the Paul VI Institute, a centre for religious studies, in the home where the Montini Pope was born, awarding its first prize to "Sources Chrétiennes", a French organisation specialised in the study of Patristics, for its contribution to the promotion of faith and culture.
The last stop on Pope Benedict’s journey is the small village church of Saint Anthony, where surrounded by the parishioners, descendents of the land of Paul VI, he will deliver an address.