Pope to star in TV Bible marathon

By David Willey
BBC News, Rome

The Pope wants the Catholic Church to deepen its knowledge of the Bible

Pope Benedict XVI has agreed to take part in a Bible-reading marathon on Italian television in October.

The Pope will start off the event on 5 October with the first chapter of Genesis, read in Italian in Saint Peter's Basilica.

The Italian state radio and TV broadcaster Rai has organised the continuous reading of the whole bible.

It will go on for six days and six nights. After the Pope, a wide variety of people will take over the reading.

Rome's chief Rabbi, Riccardo Di Segni, will read from the text in Hebrew.

The organisers of the Bible marathon said that Muslims would also be welcome to take part if they were interested.

Other readers will include academics, students, politicians, sports stars, soldiers and factory workers.

They will each read passages lasting between four and eight minutes and there will be a brief pause for a musical reflection every 90 minutes.

Pope Benedict is expected to read for a whole hour. It has not yet been decided whether his contribution will be live or recorded in advance.

A high ranking Vatican official, Monsignor Gianfranco Ravasi, said the reason why the Pope agreed to take part was that he would not be commenting, simply reading the text.

The Pope wants the Catholic Church to go back to studying and deepening its knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, he said.