Pope Benedict XVI will travel to France in September to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the shrine at Lourdes, the Vatican said Friday.
According to the Vatican's official programme, the pontiff will give 11 addresses during his four-day trip, which will begin in Paris on September 12.
Benedict is scheduled to meet French President Nicolas Sarkozy, celebrate vespers at Notre-Dame Cathedral and talk to representatives of the Jewish community in the French capital.
The 81-year-old pontiff will then be taken by helicopter to Lourdes on September 13, where he will visit for the first time the shrine where a 14-year-old peasant girl, Bernadette Soubirous, said she saw apparitions of the Virgin Mary in 1858.
Benedict will give his Sunday Angelus address in Lourdes on September 14 and meet with French bishops before flying back to Rome the next day.
The year-long anniversary celebrations in the town in the French Pyrenees began on December 8. The pope's predecessor, John Paul II, visited the shrine twice.
