Pope celebrates 80th birthday, invites 8 homeless people to breakfast

[rug]

The birthday breakfast took place in the Vatican dining room.

By Sheena McKenzie, CNN
Updated 9:24 AM ET, Sat December 17, 2016

(CNN)Pope Francis celebrated his 80th birthday Saturday by sharing breakfast with eight homeless people inside the Vatican.

The pontiff offered guests sweets from his native Argentina during the meal, which also featured pastries, meats, Nutella and orange juice.

The homeless people -- including six men and two women -- were chosen from area of St. Peter Basilica earlier in the morning, according to the Vatican.

They hailed from across the world -- four from Italy, two from Romania and one each from Moldova and Peru.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/17/europe/pope-80th-birthday-homeless/

[Liberal_in_LA]

1. 80! I wonder if he will retire soon

[rug]

3. I think he'll go as long as he can.

He must constantly weigh what needs to be done against the time he has.

[pipi_k]

2. Really cool, and

Something I recently tried to convince one of my stepdaughters to do.

She and her hubby do a lot of cooking for holidays and stuff. They love to cook.

This past Thanksgiving there was an extra guest at the table...a guy from a different country who works with my step son in law. He had never had an American Thanksgiving dinner before.

It was so awesome.

Anyway, I later told my stepdaughter that I hoped it would become a yearly family tradition...either a foreign exchange student (they live in a college town) or maybe even a homeless person.

[rug]

4. Last year my son invited a student from China at his college home for Thanksgiving.

He took pictures of the turkey and all the fixings and texted them to his father while he was here.

A couple of weeks later his father, a Customs official, mailed me a 50 year old copy of the Little Red Book. Apparently they have a new version and the original ones are now illegal. I guess his son repeated our conversations.

[pipi_k]

5. Did you guys

talk about cultural similarities and differences, and traditions and stuff?

I once worked in a job (in the same college town my stepdaughter lives) which had many students from other countries. One of the people on my staff was a young woman from China. We had so many interesting conversations She told me about her home, family, etc., and I was sort of amused when she told me that back home she was considered quite....forward. What was interesting about it was that in this country she would not be considered forward (i.e. aggressive) at all. I found her rather shy, in fact.

[rug]

8. He wanted to talk about Thanksgiving. I wanted to talk about the Cultural Revolution.

But we did talk a fair amount about daily life. It was a good time.

[resistance2016]

6. There's a Pope I actually like, and Russia has conquered the US... These are truly the end times...

Many strange things going on...

[msongs]

7. and how will he treat them when breakfast PR photo OP is over? nt

[rug]

9. Ask the homeless people you have over.