ROME (CNS): Pope Benedict XVI has agreed to be photographed for a calendar to raise money for Rwandan children.
The calendar, to be released on November 23 by the Catholic magazine Famiglia Cristiana, features 14 photographs of Pope Benedict taken in August at the papal summer villa in Castel Gandolfo.
The calendar will sell in Italy for 5 euros (A$8.40) with 1 euro (A$1.68) from each calendar going directly to Nazareth Town, a Catholic-run orphanage and hospital caring for more than 300 boys and girls in Mbare, Rwanda.
A spokeswoman for Famiglia Cristiana said on November 9 there were no plans to publish the calendar outside Italy.
Giancarlo Giuliani, who has been photographing popes for Famiglia Cristiana for 40 years, took the pictures.
He said Colombian Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, who is president of the Pontifical Council for the Family and a longtime supporter of Nazareth Town, originally had asked Famiglia Cristiana and Pope John Paul II to do a benefit calendar.
After Pope John Paul’s death in 2005, Pope Benedict offered to fulfil his predecessor’s commitment to the project.
