VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I renewed their appeals for Christian unity on Sunday during a Mass in St. Peter's Basilica.
Benedict led the ceremony alongside the leader of the world's 250 million Orthodox Christians and expressed the "common hope of seeing the day of unity draw near."
During the ceremony Benedict bestowed the pallium, or a woolen shawl, on 40 archbishops from around the world to symbolize their bond with the Vatican. One by one the archbishops, wearing crimson vestments, knelt before the pope to receive the shawl and the pontiff's embrace....