New venue for Lenten retreat

Breaking a custom of nearly 100 years, Pope Francis has moved his annual Lenten spiritual exercises with officials of the Roman Curia out of the Vatican to a retreat centre in the Alban Hills south of Rome, writes Robert Mickens. He has chosen Mgr Angelo De Donatis, a Rome parish priest and popular spiritual director among the clergy, to preach the 9-14 March exercises. They will be held at the Casa Divin Maestro, a retreat and conference centre in Ariccia just a few miles from Castel Gandolfo. It is the first time since Pope Pius XI began holding annual retreats in 1925 that they will not take place in the Apostolic Palace at the Vatican.