Following his June 4 meeting with President Bush, a two-day trip to Switzerland on June 5-6, a meeting on June 7 with a delegation of the Serbian Patriarchate and the liturgical celebrations for the solemnity of Corpus Christi on June 10, Pope John Paul II's schedule is busy for the rest of June.

For the second half of the month in addition to the continuing ad limina visits by bishops of the United States, a number of meetings are scheduled in the Vatican and it is expected the Pope will receive the participants of these gatherings or address a message to them.

On June 14 the Pontifical Councils for Culture, Interreligious Dialogue and Christian Unity, together with the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, have organized a meeting on the New Age. Participants will evaluate the response given to the document “Jesus Christ, Bearer of Living Water,” a provisional report published by the Vatican last year on this complex phenomenon, which was the result of reflections by an interdepartmental study group on the new religious movements.

On June 19, the Holy Father will receive 10,000 faithful from the Diocese of Aversa, Italy, who have come to Rome on a pilgrimage. Most often, when large groups from a diocese come to Rome, it is to “repay” the Holy Father for a visit he made to their particular church.

ROACO, the Italian acronym for the Assembly for the Works of Assistance to the Oriental Churches, will hold its annual assembly in the offices of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity June 22-24. ROACO is an umbrella committee that gathers the various agencies throughout the world that give economic and pastoral support to the Eastern Churches and includes such agencies as the Catholic Near East Welfare Association (United States), Oeuvre d'Orient (France), Kinder-hilfe Bethlehem (Switzerland) and Misereor and Missio (Germany), to name a few. The Pope traditionally receives participants in this meeting.

As 2004 is the International Year of the Family — a subject very dear to John Paul's heart — the office for the university ministry of the vicariate of Rome is co-sponsoring a four-day European symposium of university professors on the theme “The Family in Europe: Foundations, Experiences, Perspectives.” The meeting starts June 24 with a keynote address by Cardinal Camillo Ruini, vicar of Rome, in the presence of civil and religious authorities.

On June 25 the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas will hold its plenary on the topic “Being and Personhood” in Vatican City in the Pius IV House.

One of the more moving and evocative liturgical events of the year occurs on the June 29 solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul, apostles and patrons of Rome, when the Pope, in a concelebrated Mass in the early evening in St. Peter's Square, bestows the pallium on metropolitan archbishops whom he has appointed during the year.

The pallium, placed on the shoulders of the recipient, is a band of white wool with two hanging pieces, front and back, that is decorated with seven black crosses and represents the authority of a metropolitan archbishop and unity with the Holy Father.

The wool used in weaving the palliums comes from baby lambs that are blessed by the Pope each year in his private apartment on the Jan. 21 feast of St. Agnes, whose symbol is a lamb. St. Agnes died about 350 and is buried in the basilica named for her on Rome's Via Nomentana.

The lambs are raised by Trappist Fathers of the Abbey of the Three Fountains and the palliums are made from the newly-shorn wool by the sisters of St. Cecilia and brought to St. Peter's Basilica, where they are stored in a special coffer in the confessio below the main altar.

This year, the January feast coincided with the weekly general audience and the lambs were, for the first time ever, blessed by the Pope in the presence of thousands of faithful. Usually in attendance at the Jan. 21 ceremony are two Trappist fathers, two canons of the Chapter of St. John, the dean of the Roman Rota, two ceremonial officers and two officials from the Office of the Liturgical Ceremonies of the Supreme Pontiff.

In a 1978 document, De Sacri Pallii, Pope Paul VI restricted the use of the pallium to the Pope and metropolitan archbishops. In 1984 John Paul decreed that it would be conferred on the metropolitans by the Pope on the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul.

Interestingly enough, especially for visitors to St. Peter's Basilica on June 29, this is one of only two days each year when the statue of St. Peter in the basilica is dressed in ornate papal vestments and wears the triple tiara and a papal ring on the index finger of his right hand. The first time is Feb. 22, feast of the Chair of Peter.

Joan Lewis works for Vatican Information Service.