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14/09/2008 02:24
 
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The AFP and Reuters accounts of the Pope's first day in Lourdes is on the preceding page.




Pope makes pilgrimage to healing shrine in Lourdes, France

Peter O'Neil
Canwest News Service
Saturday, September 13, 2008

LOURDES, France - Pope Benedict, speaking before the glow of many thousands of pilgrims holding candles under a brisk night's soft falling rain, abandoned his famous intellectualism Saturday to explain in the simplest terms why he has joined millions of pilgrims this year at the world's most famous healing shrine dedicated to the Virgin Mary.

The leader of the world's 1.1 billion Catholics described how Bernadette Soubirous, then 14, arrived at a grotto on the outskirts of this town in 1858 to discover a young woman who was "beautiful, more beautiful than any other."

That was the first of 18 apparitions of the Virgin Mary, all of which were met with skepticism by local elites. But the visions were eventually recognized by the Vatican as hundreds, then thousands, and soon millions began arriving here to trace Bernadette's footsteps.

"By coming here to Lourdes on pilgrimage, we wish to enter into this extraordinary closeness between heaven and earth," he said during the second day of a four-day visit to France.

Benedict, though he drank from the mountain water famous for being the source of miracles, said Lourdes is about more than the dream by some - often profoundly disabled - who come here hoping for a sudden cure.

"How many come here with the hope - secretly perhaps - of receiving some miracle?" he asked.

"Then, on the return journey, having had a spiritual experience of life in the church, they changed their outlook upon God, upon others and upon themselves."

He was more explicit with reporters during the flight from Paris to Lourdes Saturday.

"Naturally, we don't go to Lourdes for miracles," he said, according to Agence France-Presse.

"We go there to seek the love of the Virgin Mother which is the true healing."

He said during his speech in Lourdes that the Virgin Mary has "caused hope and love to shine here by giving pride of place to the sick, the poor and the little ones. We are invited to discover the simplicity of our vocation: it is enough to love."

One Spaniard, who was leading chants of "Viva Papa" before Benedict's arrival, was glowing after the Popemobile passed by her en route to the grotto.

"I am feeling right now that I love him, and I know that he wants to care of Christians and other peoples," said Estibaliz Calvo, 27.

Benedict's performance couldn't match the intensity of his more charismatic predecessor's 2004 visit. John Paul II brought a larger crowd to complete silence as he willed his failing body to the grotto to pray there for the last time.

But pope-watcher John Allen said it's hard to compare Saturday's event to the drama of John Paul suffering alongside the sick, infirm and crippled three years ago.

"John Paul was frail and ill, and that obviously created a special resonance in Lourdes because this is the premier healing shrine in the Christian world," said Allen, National Catholic Reporter columnist and Vatican correspondent for CNN.

"So it's not the same dynamic."

Several in the audience said their initial concerns about Benedict when he became Pope in 2005 have vanished.

"He does not want to be seduced by the media, he doesn't want to be popular," said Christophe Levaillant, 54, a scientist from Toulouse, France, here with his family that includes a severely disabled 11-year-old son he and his wife adopted four years ago.

"He just wants to give the right message from Jesus."

Allen said Benedict, who smiled easily and often here while the Popemobile snaked through the crowds, was in his element.

John Allen described Benedict as the "consummate" voice of deep Catholic faith, so an appearance at possibly the world's most holy Marian shrine - Catholic devotion to Mary is one of the key dividing lines with Protestants - played to his strength.

"In many ways this is his crowd," said Allen.

"Sometimes when the Pope travels, he's playing on the road so to speak. This is sort of a home game for the Holy Father."

Jean Thomas, 39, of the nearby city of Bayonne, said he's over his initial doubts about Benedict and now thinks the Pope might revive the Catholic Church in France.

"He looks much more friendly and approachable than he was before," Thomas said.

But media coverage Saturday indicated he faces an uphill fight even with the support of President Nicolas Sarkozy, who has said he hopes France will relax its strict secularism that treats religion only as a private matter.

The left-wing Liberation newspaper's coverage Saturday dripped with partisan sarcasm, saying the Pope's visit simply provided Sarkozy with the kind of "show" at the Elysee Palace that the president "loves."

Liberation's facing page was dominated by a colour photograph of a young Spanish woman at a beach rubbing suntan oil on her bare, surgically enhanced breasts, accompanying an article on the popularity of breast enhancement procedures in Spain.

Le Monde, meanwhile, published a full-page series of articles and graphics showing the continued sliding church attendance and the declining number of priests in France.

While between 60 and 65 per cent of French citizens are "culturally Catholic," only five per cent of them attend mass once a month, according to the newspaper.




P.S.
9/14/08



The poster of the Diocese of Tarbes-Lourdes for Pope Benedict's visit. The diocesan site provides the link to:

Banner of the special site dedicated by the Prefecture of the Hautes-Pyrenees (the region where Lourdes is located) to the Papal visit: All the practical information that could ever be needed by pilgrims bound for Lourdes to join the Pope. A similar effort was done by the government of New South Wales for the WYD in Sydney by the Coordinating Authority specifically established to liaison with the Church on WYD arrangements and logistics.


I had to post this here so it opens the page after Benefan's post of a Lourdes Day-1 wrap-up.

All these weeks, I failed to check the site of the Diocese of Tarbes-Lourdes. I've always tried to make sure I did not miss what the host dioceses have whenever the Pope visits, and this time, I did not - because I have been going to the Lourdes Shrine site itself, in addition to the special papal visit sites of the Archdiocese of Paris and the French bishops conference.


[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 15/09/2008 01:39]
14/09/2008 13:07
 
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PILGRIMAGE TO LOURDES: DAY 1


The town



Arrival at Tarbes-Lourdes airport



Crowd awaiting the Pope at the Basilica of the Our Lady of the Rosary.



THE CACHOT
The first stop on the Jubilee Way is a former prison cell where the Soubirous family lived at the time of tHE apparitions.





The insignia given to pilgrims
who undertake the Jubilee Way.




THE BASILICA: ARRIVAL






MASSABIELLE: THE GROTTO OF THE APPARITIONS
The only known photograph of Bernadette Soubirous at the grotto was taken three years after the apparitions. Below right, the marker describing the apparitions says: "The year of grace 1858: In the gap in the rock where the statue is, the Blessed Virgin appeared to Bernadette 18 times: on February 11 and 14; every day except two between Feb. 18-March 4, on March 28, April 7 and July 10. The Blessed Virgin told the child on February 18: "Would you come here for the next 15 days? I do not promise to make you happy in this The world but in the next". The virgin told her during those 15 days: "Pray for sinners. Kiss the earth for sinners... Penitence, openitence, penience...Go tell the priests to have a chapel built here... I want people to come in prcession... Go drink at the fountain and wash yourself... Go eat the weeds there.. On March 25, the Virgin said: "I AM THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION".













THE TORCHLIGHT PROCESSION
This is a nightly event in Lourdes and is one of the most stirring experiences for any pilgrim. Last night, the Holy Father addressed the pilgrims at the end of the procession.














[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 16/09/2008 08:50]
14/09/2008 13:13
 
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Missa hodie!!!!
The Holy Mass this morning from La Prairie de Massabielle was MAGNIFIQUE!!!!!!!!

I loved the Latin and the mixture of French, with other languages during the Prayers of the Faithful was perfectly fitting. Thank you, dear Papa! The message of your homily will last for ever. I expect it will soon be online.

Ich liebe Dich, Papst Benedikt!!!!!

14/09/2008 13:28
 
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OR today.

From Paris, Benedict XVI cites again the rationality of the Christian event:
'Money, power and knowledge - the temptations of our age'

The issue puts together reports and papal texts related to the following events in Paris:

Address to France's 'world of culture' at the College des Bernardins, 9/12/08.



Meetings with Jewish and Muslim leaders, 9/12/08.



Vespers with the clergy of Paris at Notre Dame, 9/12/08.



Address to youth assembly, Notre Dame Cathedral Square, 9/12/08.



Visit to Institut de France and Mass at the Esplanade des Invalldes, 9/13/08.


And it reached back to the Pope's inflight news conference enroute to Paris, publishing a transcript of it.



THE POPE'S PROGRAM TODAY



Sunday, September 14
LOURDES


10.00 HOLY MASS TO CELEBRATE THE 150TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE MARIAN APPARITIONS, Lourdes meadow.
- Homily.

12.00 ANGELUS PRAYER, Lourdes meadow
- Remarks by the Holy Father.

12.45 Lunch with the Bishops of Midi-Pyrenees and the papal entourage,
St. Joseph Hermitage.

17.15 MEETING WITH FRENCH BISHOPS, at St. Bernadette Hemicycle.
- Address by the Holy Father.

18.30 CONCLUSION OF EUCHARISTIC PROCESSION, Lourdes meadow.
- Adoration and Benediction
- Reflection by the Holy Father.





[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 15/09/2008 11:21]
14/09/2008 13:58
 
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Reserved for translation of OR articles.


I also wish to point out that the flood of commentary on the Holy Father's signature address to the 'world of culture' in France has begun - and that what I have seen so far is mostly positive, if not glowing, even from French intellectuals. I will try to translate as much as I can as soon as possible.

I think this statement by Jean-Luc Marion, chair of the department of philosophy at the Sorbonne, is an excellent synthesis:

"I think the Pope wished to underscore above all that reason in the fullest sense of the term is one of the names of God and therefore, a central aspect of the Christian faith."

Many commentators remarked that this appears to signal a new attitude in France towards a more open interpretation of 'laicite' (secularity) that does not exclude religion from being heard in the public discourse, and that its social involvement is assistance to the State, not interference.

Cardinal Raffaele Martino, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, went so far as to call it a start to 'the collapse of secularism' analogous to the collapse of Communism.

NB: I have always carefully translated 'laicite' as 'secularity' - the state of the secular society - and not as 'secularism' (laicisme), which is the doctrine itself of keeping Church and state completely apart, with religion relegated to the private sphere.

France's 1905 law of 'laicite', based on the doctrine of 'laicisme', formally established secularity in France.



But while the French papers have reported the numbers that turned out for Benedict in Paris - 60,000 at the youth rally and prayer vigil (where they had expected 15,000 at best) and 260,000 at the Invalides Mass - no one, surprisingly, is saying "We didn't expect this, we under-estimated the drawing power of a Pope"...



I found the above picture from Le Figaro's photogallery of the Invalides Mass particularly compelling, more than most crowd pictures in general. The caption said the Esplanade was 'solid with people' - a powerful expression.

It says something about the confidence of French security that all the Pope's open-air Masses in Paris and Lourdes did not require ticketing. Was US security too careful in restricting all the Pope's events when he was here?






[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 15/09/2008 10:51]
14/09/2008 15:10
 
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Pope lauds 'power of love'
at Lourdes mass

by Carole Landry






LOURDES, France, Sept. 14 (AFP) - Pope Benedict XVI celebrated an open-air mass in the French town of Lourdes on Sunday, leading more than 150,000 faithful in prayer at one of the most revered Roman Catholic shrines.

The Mass marked the 150th anniversary of the Vatican-recognised apparitions of the Virgin Mary to a French peasant girl in a grotto that now draws millions of pilgrims.

Under clear skies, the Pontiff spoke from a white podium set up on a sprawling field near the grotto where Mary is said to have appeared 18 times to Bernadette Soubirous in 1858.

"There is a love in this world that is stronger than death, stronger than our weaknesses and sins. The power of love is stronger than the evil which threatens us," he said.

The 81-year-old Pontiff joined 230 bishops dressed in red flowing robes and mitres in the southwestern town, on the third day of his visit to France.

Singing hymns, tens of thousands of faithful, some wheelchair-bound or on stretchers, flocked to the prairie of the Lourdes sanctuary for the Sunday services delivered in several languages.

Lourdes is a magnet for the sick and disabled in search of a miracle cure from the water of the grotto's springs.

On Saturday, 260,000 people attended Mass in central Paris during which the Pope appealed to young Catholics to shun the false "idols" of the modern world and told them not to be "afraid" of a religious life.

Despite its deep Christian heritage, France is facing a freefall in the number of churchgoers, with only 10 percent of Catholics saying they attend mass regularly.

Benedict was to meet with French bishops later Sunday to discuss the state of French Catholicism.

"He is a man of great depth and I feel close to him," said Jeanne, 70, from Saint-Etienne, in central France. "He may not be as telegenic as John Paul, but he has a deep faith."

During an emotional visit to the shrine in 2004, a year before his death, John Paul declared himself "a sick man among the sick" as he struggled with advanced Parkinson's disease.

Benedict arrived Saturday for a pilgrimage to the town in the foothills of the Pyrenees that draws six million people every year.

After visiting a church where Bernadette was baptised and the small room where her family lived in poverty, the Pope went to the place where she had 18 "encounters" with the Madonna.

The Pontiff knelt in prayer at the grotto of Masiabelle and drank a glass of water from the "miracle" springs, which was presented to him by a young girl.

Benedict is to lead a special Mass on Monday dedicated to the sick and ends his pilgrimage at a hospital chapel where Bernadette received the sacrament of the first communion.

The leader of the world's one billion Catholics is making his first visit to France since his election in 2005.

The Pope arrived in Paris on Friday, meeting with President Nicolas Sarkozy, who has called for easing France's strict secularism defined in a 1905 law on the separation of church and state.

Sarkozy, a twice-divorced lapsed Catholic, broke a French taboo during a trip to the Vatican last year by calling for a "positive secularism" that would allow space for religion in public life.

The Pope sought to build on Sarkozy's position, saying Europe faced "disaster" if it turned away from religion.




Pope urges pilgrims at Lourdes
to remain hopeful

By FRANCES D'EMILIO



LOURDES, France, Sept. 14 (AP) - Pope Benedict XVI celebrated Mass on Sunday at the Lourdes shrine renowned for miracles, telling tens of thousands of faithful they should hold onto hope in a world full of evil, torture, suffering and injustice.

About 50,000 pilgrims, singing hymns and some shouldering a life-sized crucifix, gathered on a rain-soaked field known as the Lourdes prairie for the Mass marking the 150th anniversary of a peasant girl's religious visions. Millions visit the spot each year to pray for miracles of physical or spiritual healing.

The Pope urged the pilgrims to remain hopeful in the face of evil and hardship.

"The power of love is stronger than the evil which threatens us," Benedict said.

The Pope is making a three-day pilgrimage to the sanctuary, which is visited each year by 6 million pilgrims. Many believe miracles can be delivered by Bernadette Soubirous — the 14-year-old daughter of peasants who in 1858 told local clergy she had seen the Virgin Mary appear to her at the Massabielle riverside grotto.

"For 150 years, pilgrims have never ceased to come to the grotto of Massabielle to hear the message of conversion and hope which is addressed to them. And we have done the same," Benedict said, reading his homily from a platform where an altar was set up.

The Catholic church's liturgy on Sept. 14 is focused on the symbol of the cross.

Benedict told the crowd that the cross initiates the faithful into the mysteries of Christian faith, including that "there is a love in this world that is stronger than death, stronger than our weaknesses and sins."

Jesus in his death by crucifixion "took upon himself the weight of all the sufferings and injustices of our humanity," the pope said. "He bore the humiliation and the discrimination, the torture suffered in many parts of the world by so many of our brothers and sisters for the love of Christ."

The 81-year-old Pontiff said the faithful should live their lives in "invincible hope, refusing to believe those who claim that we are trapped in the fatal power of our destiny."

Benedict spent Saturday night at a hermitage, after praying at the Lourdes grotto where a spring of water broke through the ground during the months Bernadette saw the apparitions of Mary.

The Pope drank some of the water in the grotto. But he had said Friday he was not coming to seek miracles at Lourdes, which he has likened to a citadel of hope.

Countless believers in the water's healing power come to Lourdes to drink or bathe in it, and bring home flasks and even gas-can sized plastic containers of the spring's water.

French bishops came to Lourdes for a meeting later Sunday with the pope, who wants to shore up flagging faith in the traditionally Roman Catholic country where Mass attendance is very low.

Among the pilgrims at Sunday's Mass was a group of Spanish students who had slept on mats on the floor of Lourdes' basilica.

"In Lourdes you can feel the Catholic faith more strongly than in other places," said Ines Belinchon, a high-school student on her fifth trip to Lourdes, where she has often come to help the sick.






Love stronger than evil,
Pope tells Lourdes crowd

By Philip Pullella



LOURDES, France, Sept. 14 (Reuters) - Pope Benedict, on a pilgrimage to the shrine where the faithful believe the Virgin Mary appeared to a peasant girl 150 years ago, told a crowd on Sunday that love can be stronger than all the evil in the world.

The 81-year-old Benedict said a Mass for more than 100,000 people on a field in the shadow of the sanctuary built over the spot of the apparitions in 1858.

Pilgrims flocked here from dozens of countries for the pope's three-day visit, his 10th abroad and his first to France.

When he arrived on Saturday night, Benedict prayed in the grotto where Bernadette Soubirous said the Madonna appeared and spoke to her 18 times and he drank water from a spring that believers say has healing powers.

In the past 150 years, the Church has recognized as "miracles" more than 65 medically inexplicable healings of sick pilgrims who visited Lourdes.

Benedict, saying Mass from under white canopies shaped like sails, told his listeners to be true to their faith because "it tells us that there is a love in this world that is stronger than death, stronger than our weakness and sins."

Wearing red, white and gold vestments, he told a crowd wrapped in jackets against an unusually cold late summer day that "the power of love is stronger than the evil which threatens us."

Since his arrival in France on Friday, the Pope has been effectively giving the country's Catholics a series of pep talks, urging them not to be afraid to live their faith in public.

He has been encouraging them to speak out confidently in a country where "laicite," the separation of church and state that often relegates faith to the private sphere, is part of the national psyche.

Religion has re-emerged as a factor in public life, especially because of the growth of Islam, and French Catholics have increasingly spoken out on social issues.

The once powerful French Church struggles with a shortage of priests and Sunday mass attendance is below 10 percent.

In his homily at Lourdes, the Pope told his listeners to reject the concept that praying is "wasting time" and made a particular appeal to young people not to be afraid to answer God's call for them to enter the religious life as priests or nuns.

At the end of a candlelight procession late on Friday night, Benedict asked the world not to forget the victims of terrorism and hatred.

"We think of innocent victims who suffer from violence, war, terrorism and famine; those who bear the consequences of injustices, scourges and disasters, hatred and oppression; of attacks on their human dignity and fundamental rights, on their freedom to act and think," he said.

The Pope spoke two days after the seventh anniversary of the September 11 attacks against the United States.

Lourdes was the last foreign destination visited by Pope John Paul II before his death in 2005.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 14/09/2008 16:03]
14/09/2008 15:27
 
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Here is the English translation from Vatican Radio of the Holy Father's homily in Lourdes today, and his Angelus message afterwards:




THE HOLY FATHER'S HOMILY

(From the 'Tres Riches Heures' of the Duc de Berry, 1412-1416, Chantilly, France)
FEAST OF THE EXALTATION OF THE HOLY CROSS

The Meadow, Lourdes



Dear Cardinals,
Dear Bishop Perrier,
Dear Brothers in the episcopate and the priesthood,
Dear pilgrims, brothers and sisters,

“Go and tell the priests that people should come here in procession, and that a chapel should be built here.”

This is the message Bernadette received from the “beautiful lady” in the apparition of 2 March 1858. For 150 years, pilgrims have never ceased to come to the grotto of Massabielle to hear the message of conversion and hope which is addressed to them.

And we have done the same; here we are this morning at the feet of Mary, the Immaculate Virgin, eager to learn from her alongside little Bernadette.

I would like to thank especially Bishop Jacques Perrier of Tarbes and Lourdes for the warm welcome he has given me, and for the kind words he has addressed to me.

I greet the Cardinals, the Bishops, the priests, the deacons, the men and women religious, and all of you, dear Lourdes pilgrims, especially the sick. You have come in large numbers to make this Jubilee pilgrimage with me and to entrust your families, your relatives and friends, and all your intentions to Our Lady.

My thanks go also to the civil and military Authorities who are here with us at this Eucharistic celebration.

“What a great thing it is to possess the Cross! He who possesses it possesses a treasure” (Saint Andrew of Crete, Homily X on the Exaltation of the Cross, PG 97, 1020).

On this day when the Church’s liturgy celebrates the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, the Gospel you have just heard reminds us of the meaning of this great mystery: God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that men might be saved (cf. Jn 3:16).

The Son of God became vulnerable, assuming the condition of a slave, obedient even to death, death on a cross (cf. Phil 2:8). By his Cross we are saved. The instrument of torture which, on Good Friday, manifested God’s judgement on the world, has become a source of life, pardon, mercy, a sign of reconciliation and peace.

“In order to be healed from sin, gaze upon Christ crucified!” said Saint Augustine (Treatise on Saint John, XII, 11). By raising our eyes towards the Crucified one, we adore him who came to take upon himself the sin of the world and to give us eternal life.

And the Church invites us proudly to lift up this glorious Cross so that the world can see the full extent of the love of the Crucified one for all. She invites us to give thanks to God because from a tree which brought death, life has burst out anew.

On this wood Jesus reveals to us his sovereign majesty, he reveals to us that he is exalted in glory. Yes, “Come, let us adore him!” In our midst is he who loved us even to giving his life for us, he who invites every human being to draw near to him with trust.

This is the great mystery that Mary also entrusts to us this morning, inviting us to turn towards her Son. In fact, it is significant that, during the first apparition to Bernadette, Mary begins the encounter with the sign of the Cross.

More than a simple sign, it is an initiation into the mysteries of the faith that Bernadette receives from Mary. The sign of the Cross is a kind of synthesis of our faith, for it tells how much God loves us; it tells us that there is a love in this world that is stronger than death, stronger than our weaknesses and sins.

The power of love is stronger than the evil which threatens us. It is this mystery of the universality of God’s love for men that Mary came to reveal here, in Lourdes. She invites all people of good will, all those who suffer in heart or body, to raise their eyes towards the Cross of Jesus, so as to discover there the source of life, the source of salvation.

The Church has received the mission of showing all people this loving face of God, manifested in Jesus Christ. Are we able to understand that in the Crucified One of Golgotha, our dignity as children of God, tarnished by sin, is restored to us?

Let us turn our gaze towards Christ. It is he who will make us free to love as he loves us, and to build a reconciled world. For on this Cross, Jesus took upon himself the weight of all the sufferings and injustices of our humanity.

He bore the humiliation and the discrimination, the torture suffered in many parts of the world by so many of our brothers and sisters for love of Christ. We entrust all this to Mary, mother of Jesus and our mother, present at the foot of the Cross.

In order to welcome into our lives this glorious Cross, the celebration of the Jubilee of Our Lady’s apparitions in Lourdes urges us to embark upon a journey of faith and conversion.

Today, Mary comes to meet us, so as to show us the way towards a renewal of life for our communities and for each one of us. By welcoming her Son, whom she presents to us, we are plunged into a living stream in which the faith can rediscover new vigour, in which the Church can be strengthened so as to proclaim the mystery of Christ ever more boldly.

Jesus, born of Mary, is the Son of God, the sole Saviour of all people, living and acting in his Church and in the world. The Church is sent everywhere in the world to proclaim this unique message and to invite people to receive it through an authentic conversion of heart.

This mission, entrusted by Jesus to his disciples, receives here, on the occasion of this Jubilee, a breath of new life. After the example of the great evangelizers from your country, may the missionary spirit which animated so many men and women from France over the centuries, continue to be your pride and your commitment!

When we follow the Jubilee Way in the footsteps of Bernadette, we are reminded of the heart of the message of Lourdes.

Bernadette is the eldest daughter of a very poor family, with neither knowledge nor power, and in poor health. Mary chose her to transmit her message of conversion, prayer and penance, which fully accord with words of Jesus: “What you have hidden from the wise and understanding, you have revealed to babes” (Mt 11:25).

On their spiritual journey, Christians too are called to render fruitful the grace of their Baptism, to nourish themselves with the Eucharist, to draw strength from prayer so as to bear witness and to express solidarity with all their fellow human beings (cf. Homage to the Virgin Mary, Piazza di Spagna, 8 December 2007).

It is therefore a genuine catechesis that is being proposed to us in this way, under Mary’s gaze. Let us allow her to instruct us too, and to guide us along the path that leads to the Kingdom of her Son!

In the course of her catechesis, the “beautiful lady” reveals her name to Bernadette: “I am the Immaculate Conception”. Mary thereby discloses the extraordinary grace that she has received from God, that of having been conceived without sin, for “he has looked on his servant in her lowliness” (cf. Lk 1:48).

Mary is the woman from this earth who gave herself totally to God, and who received the privilege of giving human life to his eternal Son. “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; let what you have said be done to me” (Lk 1:38).

She is beauty transfigured, the image of the new humanity. By presenting herself in this way, in utter dependence upon God, Mary expresses in reality an attitude of total freedom, based upon the full recognition of her true dignity.

This privilege concerns us too, for it discloses to us our own dignity as men and women, admittedly marked by sin, but saved in hope, a hope which allows us to face our daily life. This is the path which Mary opens up for man.

To give oneself fully to God is to find the path of true freedom. For by turning towards God, man becomes himself. He rediscovers his original vocation as a person created in his image and likeness.

Dear Brothers and Sisters, the primary purpose of the shrine at Lourdes is to be a place of encounter with God in prayer and a place of service to our brothers and sisters, notably through the welcome given to the sick, the poor and all who suffer.

In this place, Mary comes to us as a mother, always open to the needs of her children. Through the light which streams from her face, God’s mercy is made manifest.

Let us allow ourselves to be touched by her gaze, which tells us that we are all loved by God and never abandoned by him!

Mary comes to remind us that prayer which is humble and intense, trusting and persevering, must have a central place in our Christian lives. Prayer is indispensable if we are to receive Christ’s power. “People who pray are not wasting their time, even though the situation appears desperate and seems to call for action alone” (Deus Caritas Est, 36).

To allow oneself to become absorbed by activity runs the risk of depriving prayer of its specifically Christian character and its true efficacy.

The prayer of the Rosary, so dear to Bernadette and to Lourdes pilgrims, concentrates within itself the depths of the Gospel message. It introduces us to contemplation of the face of Christ. From this prayer of the humble, we can draw an abundance of graces.

The presence of young people at Lourdes is also an important element. Dear friends, gathered this morning around the World Youth Day Cross: when Mary received the angel’s visit, she was a young girl from Nazareth leading the simple and courageous life typical of the women of her village.

And if God’s gaze focussed particularly upon her, trusting in her, Mary wants to tell you once more that not one of you is indifferent in God’s eyes. He directs his loving gaze upon each one of you and he calls you to a life that is happy and full of meaning.

Do not allow yourselves to be discouraged by difficulties! Mary was disturbed by the message of the angel who came to tell her that she would become the Mother of the Saviour. She was conscious of her frailty in the face of God’s omnipotence. Nevertheless, she said “yes”, without hesitating. And thanks to her yes, salvation came into the world, thereby changing the history of mankind.

For your part, dear young people, do not be afraid to say yes to the Lord’s summons when he invites you to walk in his footsteps. Respond generously to the Lord! Only he can fulfil the deepest aspirations of your heart.

You have come to Lourdes in great numbers for attentive and generous service to the sick and to the other pilgrims, setting out in this way to follow Christ the servant. Serving our brothers and sisters opens our hearts and makes us available.

In the silence of prayer, be prepared to confide in Mary, who spoke to Bernadette in a spirit of respect and trust towards her.

May Mary help those who are called to marriage to discover the beauty of a genuine and profound love, lived as a reciprocal and faithful gift!

To those among you whom he calls to follow him in the priesthood or the religious life, I would like to reiterate all the joy that is to be had through giving one’s life totally for the service of God and others. May Christian families and communities be places where solid vocations can come to birth and grow, for the service of the Church and the world!

Mary’s message is a message of hope for all men and women of our day, whatever their country of origin. I like to invoke Mary as the star of hope (Spe Salvi, 50).

On the paths of our lives, so often shrouded in darkness, she is a beacon of hope who enlightens us and gives direction to our journey. Through her “yes”, through the generous gift of herself, she has opened up to God the gates of our world and our history.

And she invites us to live like her in invincible hope, refusing to believe those who claim that we are trapped in the fatal power of destiny. She accompanies us with her maternal presence amid the events of our personal lives, our family lives, and our national lives.

Happy are those men and women who place their trust in him who, at the very moment when he was offering his life for our salvation, gave us his Mother to be our own!

Dear Brothers and Sisters, in this land of France, the Mother of the Lord is venerated in countless shrines which thereby manifest the faith handed down from generation to generation. Celebrated in her Assumption, she is your country’s beloved patroness.

May she always be honoured fervently in each of your families, in your religious communities and in your parishes!

May Mary watch over all the inhabitants of your beautiful country and over the pilgrims who have come in such numbers from other countries to celebrate this Jubilee!

May she be for all people the Mother who surrounds her children in their joys and their trials!

Holy Mary, Mother of God, our Mother, teach us to believe, to hope and to love with you. Show us the way towards the kingdom of your Son Jesus! Star of the sea, shine upon us and lead us on our way! (cf. Spe Salvi, 50). Amen.




REMARKS BEFORE THE ANGELUS


Dear Pilgrims, dear brothers and sisters!

Every day, praying the Angelus gives us the opportunity to meditate for a few moments, in the midst of all our activities, on the mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God.

At noon, when the first hours of the day are already beginning to weigh us down with fatigue, our availability and our generosity are renewed by the contemplation of Mary’s “yes”.

This clear and unreserved “yes” is rooted in the mystery of Mary’s freedom, a total and entire freedom before God, completely separated from any complicity with sin, thanks to the privilege of her Immaculate Conception.

This privilege given to Mary, which sets her apart from our common condition, does not distance her from us, but on the contrary, it brings her closer.

While sin divides, separating us from one another, Mary’s purity makes her infinitely close to our hearts, attentive to each of us and desirous of our true good. You see it here in Lourdes, as in all Marian shrines; immense crowds come thronging to Mary’s feet to entrust to her their most intimate thoughts, their most heartfelt wishes.

That which many, either because of embarrassment or modesty, do not confide to their nearest and dearest, they confide to her who is all pure, to her Immaculate Heart: with simplicity, without frills, in truth.

Before Mary, by virtue of her very purity, man does not hesitate to reveal his weakness, to express his questions and his doubts, to formulate his most secret hopes and desires.

The Virgin Mary’s maternal love disarms all pride; it renders man capable of seeing himself as he is, and it inspires in him the desire to be converted so as to give glory to God.

Thus, Mary shows us the right way to come to the Lord. She teaches us to approach him in truth and simplicity. Thanks to her, we discover that the Christian faith is not a burden: it is like a wing which enables us to fly higher, so as to take refuge in God’s embrace.

The life and faith of believers make it clear that the grace of the Immaculate Conception given to Mary is not merely a personal grace, but a grace for all, a grace given to the entire people of God.

In Mary, the Church can already contemplate what she is called to become. Every believer can contemplate, here and now, the perfect fulfilment of his or her own vocation.

May each of you always remain full of thanksgiving for what the Lord has chosen to reveal of his plan of salvation through the mystery of Mary: a mystery in which we are involved most intimately since, from the height of the Cross which we celebrate and exalt today, it is revealed to us through the words of Jesus himself that his Mother is our Mother.

Inasmuch as we are sons and daughters of Mary, we can profit from all the graces given to her; the incomparable dignity that came to her through her Immaculate Conception shines brightly over us, her children.

Here, close to the grotto, and in intimate communion with all the pilgrims present in Marian shrines and with all the sick in body and soul who are seeking relief, we bless the Lord for Mary’s presence among her people, and to her we address our prayer in faith:

“Holy Mary, you showed yourself here one hundred and fifty years ago to the young Bernadette, you ‘are the true fount of hope’ (cfr Dante, Paradiso, XXXIII:12).

Faithful pilgrims who have gathered here from every part of the world, we come once more to draw faith and comfort, joy and love, security and peace, from the source of your Immaculate Heart.

Monstra Te esse Matrem. Show yourself a Mother for us all, O Mary! And give us Christ, the hope of the world! Amen.”




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PILGRIMAGE TO LOURDES, DAY 2:
MASS AND ANGELUS
The Meadow



The Pope arrives for the Mass.









The Mass.








After the Mass:



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THE POPE MEETS WITH
THE BISHOPS OF FRANCE




Here is the English translation from Vatican Radio of the Holy Father's address to the Bishops of France this afternoon.

ADDRESS TO FRENCH BISHOPS
St. Bernadette Hemicycle


Venerable Brother Cardinals,
Dear Brother Bishops,

This is the first time since the beginning of my pontificate that I have had the joy of meeting all of you together.

I offer cordial greetings to your President, Cardinal André Vingt-Trois, and I thank him for the kind words he has addressed to me in your name. I am also pleased to greet the Vice-Presidents, as well as the General Secretary and his staff.

I warmly greet each one of you, my brothers in the episcopate, who have come here from every part of France and from overseas. (I include here Archbishop François Garnier of Cambrai, who is today celebrating in Valenciennes the Millennium of Our Lady of Saint-Cordon).

I am happy to be among you this evening here in the hemicycle of Saint Bernadette’s Church, where you habitually come together for prayer and for your meetings, where you express your concerns and your hopes, where you hold your discussions and your reflections.

This hall is in a privileged location close to the grotto and the Marian Basilicas. Of course you regularly encounter the Successor of Peter in Rome on your ad limina visits, but this occasion that brings us together here has been given to us as a grace, to reaffirm the close links that unite us through our sharing in the same priesthood that issues directly from the priesthood of Christ the Redeemer.

I encourage you to continue working in unity and trust, in full communion with Peter, who has come in order to strengthen your faith. Your concerns at present are manifold! I know that you are committed to working within the new framework established by the reorganization of ecclesiastical provinces, and I rejoice that it should be so.

I would like to take this opportunity to reflect with you on some topics that I know are at the centre of your attention.

The Church – one, holy, catholic and apostolic – has given birth to you in Baptism. She has called you to her service; you have given her your lives, firstly as deacons and priests, then as Bishops. I express my deep appreciation for this gift of yourselves: despite the magnitude of the task, which underscores its honour – honor, onus! – you carry out with fidelity and humility the triple task towards the flock entrusted to you of teaching, governing, sanctifying, in light of the Constitution Lumen Gentium (nos. 25-28) and the Decree Christus Dominus.

As successors of the Apostles, you represent Christ at the head of the dioceses which have been entrusted to you, and you strive to be true to the portrait of the Bishop sketched by Saint Paul; you seek to grow constantly in this path, so as to be ever more “hospitable, lovers of goodness, masters of yourselves, upright, holy and self-controlled; holding firm to the sure word as taught, able to give instruction in sound doctrine” (cf. Tit 1:8-9). The Christian people must regard you with affection and respect.

From its origins, Christian tradition has insisted on this point: “All those who belong to God and Jesus Christ, stand by their Bishop”, said Saint Ignatius of Antioch (Letter to the Philadelphians, 3:2), and he added: “When someone is sent by the master of a house to manage his household for him, it is our duty to give him the same kind of reception as we should give to the sender” (Letter to the Ephesians, 6:1).

Your mission as spiritual leaders consists, then, in creating the necessary conditions for the faithful to “sing aloud to the Father with one voice through Jesus Christ” (ibid., 4:2), and in this way to make their lives an offering to God.

You are rightly convinced that, if every baptized person is to grow in desire for God and in understanding of life’s meaning, catechesis is of fundamental importance.

The two principal instruments at your disposal – the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the Catechism of the Bishops of France – are like precious jewels. They offer a harmonious synthesis of the Catholic faith and they ensure that the preaching of the Gospel is truly faithful to the riches that it contains.

Catechesis is not first and foremost a question of method, but of content, as the name itself indicates: it is about an organic presentation (kat-echein) of the whole of Christian revelation, in such a way as to make available to minds and hearts the word of him who gave his life for us.

In this way, catechesis causes to resound within the heart of every human being a unique call that is ceaselessly renewed: “Follow me” (Mt 9:9). Diligent preparation of catechists will allow integral transmission of the faith, after the example of Saint Paul, the greatest catechist of all time, whom we regard with particular admiration in this bimillennium of his birth.

In the midst of his apostolic concerns, he had this to say: “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths” (2 Tim 4:3-4).

Recognizing the truth of his predictions, you strive with humility and perseverance to be faithful to his recommendations: “Preach the word, be urgent in season and out of season … be unfailing in patience and in teaching” (2 Tim 4:2).

In order to accomplish this task effectively, you need co-workers. For this reason, priestly and religious vocations deserve to be encouraged more than ever.

I have been informed of the initiatives that have been taken with faith in this area, and I hasten to offer my full support to those who are not afraid, as Christ was not afraid, to invite the young and not so young to place themselves at the service of the Master who is here, calling (cf. Mt 11:28).

I would like to offer warm thanks and encouragement to all families, parishes, Christian communities and ecclesial movements, which provide the fertile soil that bears the good fruit (cf. Mt 13:8) of vocations.

In this context, I wish to acknowledge the countless prayers of true disciples of Christ and of his Church. These include priests, men and women religious, the elderly, the sick, as well as prisoners, who for decades have offered prayers to God in obedience to the command of Jesus: “Pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest” (Mt 9:38).

The Bishop and the communities of the faithful must play their part in promoting and welcoming priestly and religious vocations, relying on the grace of the Holy Spirit in order to carry out the necessary discernment.

Yes, dear Brothers in the episcopate, continue inviting people to the priesthood and the religious life, just as Peter let down the nets at the Master’s order, when he had spent the whole night fishing without catching anything (cf. Lk 5:5).

It can never be said often enough that the priesthood is indispensable to the Church, for it is at the service of the laity. Priests are a gift from God for the Church. Where their specific missions are concerned, priests cannot delegate their functions to the faithful.

Dear Brothers in the episcopate, I urge you to continue helping your priests to live in profound union with Christ. Their spiritual life is the foundation of their apostolic life. You will gently exhort them to daily prayer and to the worthy celebration of the sacraments, especially the Eucharist and Reconciliation, as Saint Francis de Sales did for his priests.

Every priest should be able to feel happiness in serving the Church. In the school of the Curé d’Ars, a son of your land and patron of pastors throughout the world, constantly reiterate that the greatest thing a man can do is to give the body and blood of Christ to the faithful and to forgive their sins.

Seek to be attentive to their human, intellectual and spiritual formation, and to their means of subsistence. Try, despite the weight of your onerous tasks, to meet them regularly and know how to receive them as brothers and friends (cf. Lumen Gentium, 28; Christus Dominus, 16).

Priests need your affection, your encouragement and your solicitude. Be close to them and have particular care for those who are in difficulties, sick or elderly (cf. Christus Dominus, 16). Do not forget that they are – as the Second Vatican Council teaches, quoting the magnificent expression used by Saint Ignatius of Antioch in his Letter to the Magnesians – “the spiritual crown of the Bishop” (Lumen Gentium, 41).

Liturgical worship is the supreme expression of priestly and episcopal life, just as it is of catechetical teaching. Your duty to sanctify the faithful people, dear Brothers, is indispensable for the growth of the Church.

In the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum, I was led to set out the conditions in which this duty is to be exercised, with regard to the possibility of using the missal of Blessed John XXIII (1962) in addition to that of Pope Paul VI (1970).

Some fruits of these new arrangements have already been seen, and I hope that, thanks be to God, the necessary pacification of spirits is already taking place. I am aware of your difficulties, but I do not doubt that, within a reasonable time, you can find solutions satisfactory for all, lest the seamless tunic of Christ be further torn.

Everyone has a place in the Church. Every person, without exception, should be able to feel at home, and never rejected. God, who loves all men and women and wishes none to be lost, entrusts us with this mission by appointing us shepherds of his sheep. We can only thank him for the honour and the trust that he has placed in us. Let us therefore strive always to be servants of unity!

What are the other areas that require particular attention? The answers probably vary from one diocese to another, but there is certainly one problem which arises with particular urgency everywhere: the situation of the family.

We know that marriage and the family are today experiencing real turbulence. The words of the Evangelist about the boat in the storm on the lake may be applied to the family: “waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already filling” (Mk 4:37).

The factors which brought about this crisis are well known, and there is no need to list them here. For several decades, laws in different countries have been relativizing its nature as the primordial cell of society.

Often they are seeking more to adapt to the mores and demands of particular individuals or groups, than to promote the common good of society. The stable union of a man and a women, ordered to building earthly happiness through the birth of children given by God, is no longer, in the minds of certain people, the reference point for conjugal commitment.

However, experience shows that the family is the foundation on which the whole of society rests. Moreover, Christians know that the family is also the living cell of the Church. The more the family is steeped in the spirit and values of the Gospel, the more the Church herself will be enriched by them and the better she will fulfil her vocation.

I recognize and encourage warmly the efforts you are making to support the various associations active in assisting families. You have reason to uphold firmly, even at the cost of opposing prevailing trends, the principles which constitute the strength and the greatness of the sacrament of marriage.

The Church wishes to remain utterly faithful to the mandate entrusted to her by her Founder, her Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. She does not cease to repeat with him: “What God has joined together, let not man put asunder!” (Mt 19:6).

The Church did not give herself this mission: she received it. To be sure, none can deny that certain families experience trials, sometimes very painful ones. Families in difficulty must be supported, they must be helped to understand the greatness of marriage, and encouraged not to relativize God’s will and the laws of life which he has given us.

A particularly painful situation concerns those who are divorced and remarried. The Church, which cannot oppose the will of Christ, firmly maintains the principle of the indissolubility of marriage, while surrounding with the greatest affection those men and women who, for a variety of reasons, fail to respect it.

Hence initiatives aimed at blessing irregular unions cannot be admitted. The Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio [by John Paul II] has indicated a way open to the fruit of reflection carried out with respect for truth and charity.

Young people, I know well, dear Brothers, are at the centre of your concerns. You devote much of your time to them, and you are right to do so.

As you know, I have recently encountered a great multitude of them in Sydney, in the course of World Youth Day. I appreciated their enthusiasm and their capacity to dedicate themselves to prayer. Even while living in a world which courts them and flatters their base instincts, and carrying, as they do, the heavy burdens handed down by history, the young retain a freshness of soul which has elicited my admiration.

I appealed to their sense of responsibility by urging them always to draw support from the vocation given them by God on the day of their Baptism.

“Our strength lies in what Christ wants from us”, Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger used to say. In the course of his first journey to France, my venerable Predecessor delivered an address to the young people of your country which has lost none of its relevance, and which was received at the time with unforgettable fervour.

“Moral permissiveness does not make people happy”, he proclaimed at the Parc des Princes, amid thunderous applause. The good sense which inspired the healthy reaction of his hearers is still alive. I ask the Holy Spirit to speak to the hearts of all the faithful and, more generally, of all your compatriots, so as to give them – or to restore to them – the desire for a life lived in accordance with the criteria of true happiness.

At the Élysée Palace on Friday, I spoke of the uniqueness of the French situation, which the Holy See wishes to respect. I am convinced, in fact, that nations must never allow what gives them their particular identity to disappear.

The fact that different members of the same family have the same father and mother does not mean that they are undifferentiated subjects: they are actually persons with their own individuality. The same is true for countries, which must take care to preserve and develop their particular culture, without ever allowing it to be absorbed by others or swamped in a dull uniformity.

“The Nation is in fact” — to take up the words of Pope John Paul II —“the great community of men who are united by various ties, but above all, precisely by culture. The Nation exists ‘through’ culture and ‘for’ culture, and it is therefore the great educator of men in order that they may ‘be more’ in the community” (Address to UNESCO, 2 June 1980, no. 14).

From this perspective, drawing attention to France’s Christian roots will permit each inhabitant of the country to come to a better understanding of his or her origin and destiny. Consequently, within the current institutional framework and with the utmost respect for the laws that are in force, it is necessary to find a new path, in order to interpret and live from day to day the fundamental values on which the Nation’s identity is built.

Your President has intimated that this is possible. The social and political presuppositions of past mistrust or even hostility are gradually disappearing.

The Church does not claim the prerogative of the State. She does not wish to take its place. She is a community built on certain convictions; she is aware of her responsibility for the whole and cannot remain closed within herself.

She speaks freely, and enters into dialogue with equal freedom, in her desire to build up a shared freedom, so that, with due regard for their legitimate diversity in nature and function, the ethical forces of State and Church can work together to allow the individual to thrive, for the sake of building a harmonious society.

I congratulate you on the existence for some time of the forum for dialogue, which facilitates relations with the State. A number of issues, preparing the ground for others to be added as the need arises, have already been studied and resolved to universal satisfaction.

Thanks to a healthy collaboration between the political community and the Church, made possible through an acknowledgment and respect for the independence and autonomy of each within their particular spheres, a service is rendered to mankind which aims at his full personal and social development.

Several points — as well as others in development which will be added as the need arises — have already been studied and resolved within the “Appeal for Dialogue between the Church and the State”.

The Apostolic Nunzio, in virtue of his own mission and in the name of the Holy See, naturally takes part in these initiatives, as he is called to follow actively the life of the Church and its situation within society.

As you know, my predecessors – Blessed John XXIII, who was once Nuncio in Paris, and Pope Paul VI – decided to establish Secretariats which, in 1988, became the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue.

Quickly added to these were the Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews and the Commission for Religious Relations with Muslims. These structures in some sense constitute the institutional and conciliar recognition of countless earlier initiatives and accomplishments.

Similar commissions or councils exist within your Episcopal Conference and your dioceses. Their existence and activity demonstrate the Church’s desire to move forward by developing bilateral dialogue.

The recent Plenary Assembly of the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue has highlighted the fact that authentic dialogue requires, as fundamental conditions, good formation for those who promote it, and enlightened discernment in order to advance step by step in discovering the Truth.

The goal of ecumenical and inter-religious dialogue, which naturally differ in their respective nature and finality, is to seek and deepen a knowledge of the Truth. It is therefore a noble and obligatory task for every believer, since Christ himself is the Truth.

The building of bridges between the great ecclesial Christian traditions, and dialogue with other religious traditions, demand a real striving for mutual understanding, because ignorance destroys more than it builds.

Moreover, only the Truth makes it possible to live authentically the dual commandment of Love which our Saviour left us. To be sure, one must follow closely the various initiatives that are undertaken, so as to discern which ones favour reciprocal knowledge and respect, as well as the promotion of dialogue, and so as to avoid those which lead to impasses.

Good will is not enough. I believe it is good to begin by listening, then moving on to theological discussion, so as to arrive finally at witness and proclamation of the faith itself (cf. Doctrinal Note on certain aspects of Evangelization, no. 12, 3 December 2007).

May the Holy Spirit grant you the discernment which must characterize every Pastor. As Saint Paul recommends: “Test everything; hold fast what is good!” (1 Th 5:21).

The globalized, multi-cultural and multi-religious society in which we live is a God-given opportunity to proclaim Truth and practice Love so as to reach out to every human being without distinction, even beyond the limits of the visible Church.

The year preceding my election to the Chair of Peter, I had the joy of coming to your country to preside at the ceremonies commemorating the sixtieth anniversary of the Normandy landings. Seldom as on that occasion have I sensed the attachment of the sons and daughters of France to the land of their ancestors.

France was then celebrating its temporal liberation, at the conclusion of a cruel war which had claimed countless victims. Now, and above all, it is time to work towards a genuine spiritual liberation.

Man is always in need of liberation from his fears and his sins. Man must ceaselessly learn or relearn that God is not his enemy, but his infinitely good Creator. Man needs to know that his life has a meaning, and that he is awaited, at the conclusion of his earthly sojourn, so as to share for ever in Christ’s glory in heaven.

Your mission is to bring the portion of the People of God entrusted to your care to recognize this glorious destiny. Please be assured of my admiration and my gratitude for all that you do in order to achieve this. Please be assured of my daily prayers for each of you. Please believe that I unceasingly ask the Lord and his Mother to guide you on your path.

With heartfelt joy, I entrust you, dear Brothers in the episcopate, to Our Lady of Lourdes and to Saint Bernadette. God’s power has always been manifested in weakness.

The Holy Spirit has always cleansed what is soiled, watered what is arid, straightened what is crooked. Christ the Saviour, who has chosen to make us instruments for communicating his love to men, will never cease to make you grow in faith, hope and love, so as to give you the joy of bringing to him a growing number of the men and women of our day.

In entrusting you to the power of the Redeemer, I impart to all of you, from my heart, an affectionate Apostolic Blessing.






THE PAPAL VISIT SO FAR: A RECAP
Pope calls French bishops to order

by Carole Landry




LOURDES, France, Sept. 14 (AFP) - Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday celebrated Mass before 150,000 faithful in the shrine town of Lourdes before urging French bishops to defend Church doctrine on marriage and divorce.



The Pontiff said the Church will not open up to divorced Roman Catholics and appealed to bishops to "uphold firmly, even at the cost of opposing prevailing trends" marriage as a "stable union" between a man and a woman.

Making the first visit to France of his papacy, Benedict celebrated an open-air Mass to mark the 150th anniversary of what Catholics believe were the apparitions of the Virgin Mary to a peasant girl in a grotto.

Under clear skies, the Pope spoke from a white podium set up on a sprawling field not far from the grotto that has become one of the world's most revered Catholic shrines.

"The power of love is stronger than the evil which threatens us," he told followers, urging them to be true to their faith.

The southwestern town in the foothills of the Pyrenees is a magnet for the sick and disabled in search of a miracle cure from the grotto's springs.

On Monday Benedict is to lead a special Mass dedicated to the sick.

The papal visit comes at a time of unease in the French Catholic Church as it battles a freefall in the number of churchgoers, despite the nation's deep Christian heritage.

Speaking to bishops, the Pope acknowledged that families were in crisis, "experiencing real turbulence" in societies that have lost their moral compass.

"A particularly painful situation concerns those who are divorced and remarried," said the Pontiff.

While the Church is not off-limits to remarried Catholics and will surround them "with the greatest affection," it "firmly maintains the principle of the indissolubility of marriage," he said.

"Initiatives aimed at blessing irregular unions cannot be admitted," he said.

The German Pope, who as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was the chief enforcer of Church doctrine, met with 170 cardinals and bishops who have watched their flock dwindle over the past decades.

While Catholicism remains by far the number one religion in France, only 10 percent of Catholics say they attend mass regularly, according to a recent poll.

The Pope defended a decision applauded by traditionalist to revive church services in Latin, a move progressive voices has said will lead to more flagging Church attendance.

"I am aware of your difficulties, but I do not doubt that, within a reasonable time you can find solutions", said Benedict, before calling for unity.

Benedict began a pilgrimage to Lourdes on Saturday, visiting the grotto where the Madonna is said to have appeared 18 times to Bernadette Soubirous in 1858.

The leader of the world's one billion Catholics knelt in prayer before a statue of the Virgin after drinking a glass of water from the "miracle" springs that was presented to him by a young girl.

Earlier, he urged young Catholics to shun the false "idols" of the modern world and told them not to be "afraid" of religious life during a mass in central Paris attended by 260,000 people.

The Pope arrived in Paris on Friday, meeting with President Nicolas Sarkozy, who has called for easing France's strict secularism defined in a 1905 law on the separation of church and state.

Sarkozy, a twice-divorced lapsed Catholic, broke a French taboo during a trip to the Vatican last year by calling for a "positive secularism" that would allow space for religion in public life.

Benedict told bishops that France needed to find a "new path" to accommodate religion in society, but said this could be achieved without changing laws.

The papal visit ends Monday.


[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 15/09/2008 01:16]
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EUCHARISTIC PROCESSION,
ADORATION AND BENEDICTION







Here is the English translation from Vatican Radio of the Holy Father's meditation offered at the end of this afternoon's Eucharistic Procession, Adoration and Benediction at La Prairie, the meadow adjoining the Basilica at Lourdes. It is a most remarkable text - a profound prayer-meditation that gave me goosebumps when I heard it during the live broadcast.



MEDITATION ON THE BLESSED SACRAMENT
Eucharistic Procession and Adoration



Lord Jesus, You are here!
And you, my brothers, my sisters, my friends,
You are here, with me, in his presence!

Lord, two thousand years ago, you willingly mounted the infamous Cross
in order then to rise again and to remain for ever with us,
your brothers and sisters.

And you, my brothers, my sisters, my friends,
You willingly allow him to embrace you.

We contemplate him.
We adore him.
We love him. We seek to grow in love for him.

We contemplate him who, in the course of his Passover meal, gave his body and blood to his disciples, so as to be with them “always, to the close of the age” (Mt 28:20).

We adore him who is the origin and goal of our faith, him without whom we would not be here this evening, without whom we would not be at all, without whom there would be nothing, absolutely nothing!

Him through whom “all things were made” (Jn 1:3), him in whom we were created, for all eternity, him who gave us his own body and blood – he is here, this evening, in our midst, for us to gaze upon.

We love, and we seek to grow in love for him who is here, in our presence, for us to gaze upon, for us perhaps to question, for us to love.

Whether we are walking or nailed to a bed of suffering; whether we are walking in joy or languishing in the wilderness of the soul (cf. Num 21:4):

Lord, take us all into your Love; the infinite Love which is eternally the Love of the Father for the Son and the Son for the Father, the Love of the Father and the Son for the Spirit, and the Love of the Spirit for the Father and the Son.

The sacred host exposed to our view speaks of this infinite power of Love manifested on the glorious Cross.

The sacred host speaks to us of the incredible abasement of the One who made himself poor so as to make us rich in him, the One who accepted the loss of everything so as to win us for his Father.

The sacred host is the living, efficacious and real sacrament of the eternal presence of the saviour of mankind to his Church.

My brothers, my sisters, my friends,
Let us accept; may you accept to offer yourselves to him who has given us everything, who came not to judge the world, but to save it (cf. Jn 3:17), accept to recognize in your lives the presence of him who is present here, exposed to our view. Accept to offer him your very lives!

Mary, the holy Virgin, Mary, the Immaculate Conception, accepted, two thousand years ago, to give everything, to offer her body so as to receive the Body of the Creator. Everything came from Christ, even Mary; everything came through Mary, even Christ.

Mary, the holy Virgin, is with us this evening, in the presence of the Body of her Son, one hundred and fifty years after revealing herself to little Bernadette.

Holy Virgin, help us to contemplate, help us to adore, help us to love, to grow in love for him who loved us so much, so as to live eternally with him.

An immense crowd of witnesses is invisibly present beside us, very close to this blessed grotto and in front of this church that the Virgin Mary wanted to be built;

the crowd of all those men and women who have contemplated, venerated, adored the real presence of him who gave himself to us even to the last drop of blood;

the crowd of all those men and women who have spent hours in adoration of the Most Holy Sacrament of the altar.

This evening, we do not see them, but we hear them saying to us, to every man and to every woman among us:

“Come, let the Master call you! He is here! He is calling you (cf. Jn 11:28)! He wants to take your life and join it to his. Let yourself be embraced by him!

"Gaze no longer upon your own wounds, gaze upon his. Do not look upon what still separates you from him and from others; look upon the infinite distance that he has abolished by taking your flesh, by mounting the Cross which men had prepared for him, and by letting himself be put to death so as to show you his love. In his wounds, he takes hold of you; in his wounds, he hides you. Do not refuse his Love!”

The immense crowd of witnesses who have allowed themselves to be embraced by his Love, is the crowd of saints in heaven who never cease to intercede for us.

They were sinners and they knew it, but they willingly ceased to gaze upon their own wounds and to gaze only upon the wounds of their Lord, so as to discover there the glory of the Cross, to discover there the victory of Life over death.

Saint Pierre-Julien Eymard tells us everything when he cries out: “The holy Eucharist is Jesus Christ, past, present and future” (Sermons and Parochial Instructions after 1856, 4-2.1, “On Meditation”).

Jesus Christ, past, in the historical truth of the evening in the Upper Room, to which every celebration of holy Mass leads us back.

Jesus Christ, present, because he said to us: “Take and eat of this, all of you, this is my body, this is my blood.” “This is”, in the present, here and now, as in every here and now throughout human history.

The real presence, the presence which surpasses our poor lips, our poor hearts, our poor thoughts.

The presence offered for us to gaze upon as we do here, this evening, close to the grotto where Mary revealed herself as the Immaculate Conception.

The Eucharist is also Jesus Christ, future, Jesus Christ to come. When we contemplate the sacred host, his glorious transfigured and risen Body, we contemplate what we shall contemplate in eternity, where we shall discover that the whole world has been carried by its Creator during every second of its history.

Each time we consume him, but also each time we contemplate him, we proclaim him until he comes again, “donec veniat”. That is why we receive him with infinite respect.

Some of us cannot – or cannot yet – receive Him in the Sacrament, but we can contemplate Him with faith and love and express our desire finally to be united with Him. This desire has great value in God’s presence: such people await his return more ardently; they await Jesus Christ who must come again.

When, on the day after her first communion, a friend of Bernadette asked her: “What made you happier: your first communion or the apparitions?”, Bernadette replied, “they are two things that go together, but cannot be compared. I was happy in both” (Emmanuélite Estrade, 4 June 1958).

She made this testimony to the Bishop of Tarbes in regard to her first communion: “Bernadette behaved with immense concentration, with an attention that left nothing to be desired … she appeared profoundly aware of the holy action that was taking place. Everything developed in her in an astonishing way.”

With Pierre-Julien Eymard and Bernadette, we invoke the witness of countless men and women saints who had the greatest love for the holy Eucharist.

Nicolas Cabasilas cries out to us this evening: “If Christ dwells within us, what do we need? What do we lack? If we dwell in Christ, what more could we desire? He is our host and our dwelling-place. Happy are we to be his home! What joy to be ourselves the dwelling-place of such an inhabitant!”

Blessed Charles de Foucauld was born in 1858, the very year of the apparitions at Lourdes. Not far from his body, stiffened by death, there lay, like the grain of wheat cast upon the earth, the lunette containing the Blessed Sacrament which Brother Charles adored every day for many a long hour.

Father de Foucauld has given us a prayer from the depths of his heart, a prayer addressed to our Father, but one which, with Jesus, we can in all truth make our own in the presence of the sacred host:

‘Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.’

This was the last prayer of our Master, our Beloved … May it also be our own prayer, and not only at our last moment, but at every moment in our lives:

Father, I commit myself into your hands; Father, I trust in you;

Father, I abandon myself to you; Father, do with me what you will; whatever you may do, I thank you; thank you for everything; I am ready for all, I accept all; I thank you for all.

Let only your will be done in me, Lord, let only your will be done in all your creatures, in all your children, in all those whom your heart loves, I wish no more than this, O Lord.

Into your hands I commend my soul; I offer it to you, Lord, with all the love of my heart, for I love you, and so need to give myself in love, to surrender myself into your hands, without reserve, and with boundless confidence, for you are my Father.”

Beloved brothers and sisters, day pilgrims and inhabitants of these valleys, brother Bishops, priests, deacons, men and women religious, all of you who see before you the infinite abasement of the Son of God and the infinite glory of the Resurrection, remain in silent adoration of your Lord, our Master and Lord Jesus Christ.

Remain silent, then speak and tell the world: we cannot be silent about what we know.

Go and tell the whole world the marvels of God, present at every moment of our lives, in every place on earth.

May God bless us and keep us, may he lead us on the path of eternal life, he who is Life, for ever and ever. Amen.




[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 15/09/2008 00:35]
15/09/2008 11:20
 
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Reserved for Le Figaro editorial and Le Monde article (by Henri Tincq) on what I can only consider 'total capitulation' to the multiple graces of Benedict XVI and the compelling spiritual power that he wields.




15/09/2008 11:34
 
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No OR today.


THE POPE'S PROGRAM


Monday, September 15



08:30 Depart the Residence of St. Joseph Hermitage.

08.45 Visit the Chapel of the Hospital of Lourdes.

09.30 HOLY MASS FOR THE SICK, Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary.
- Homily.

12.10 Depart by helicopter from Antoine Béguère stadium for the airport of Tarbes-Lourdes.

12.30 Arrival at the airport.
- DEPARTURE CEREMONY
- Address by the Holy Father.

13.00 Depart Tarbes-Lourdes airport from Rome-Ciampino.

ITALY
Ciampino

15.15 Arrival at Ciampino airport.




[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 15/09/2008 11:34]
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THE POPE SAYS MASS
FOR THE SICK


Here is the English translation from Vatican Radio of the Holy Father's homily at the Mass he offered thsi morning in Lourdes for the sick and for health care workers and caregivers.








THE HOLY FATHER'S HOMILY

MASS OF OUR LADY OF SORROWS



Dear Brothers in the episcopate and the priesthood,
Dear Friends who are sick, dear caregivers and helpers,
Dear Brothers and Sisters!

Yesterday we celebrated the Cross of Christ, the instrument of our salvation, which reveals the mercy of our God in all its fullness. The Cross is truly the place where God’s Compassion for our world is perfectly manifested.

Today, as we celebrate the memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows, we contemplate Mary sharing her Son’s compassion for sinners. As Saint Bernard declares, the Mother of Christ entered into the Passion of her Son through her compassion (cf. Homily for Sunday in the Octave of the Assumption).

At the foot of the Cross, the prophecy of Simeon is fulfilled: her mother’s heart is pierced through (cf. Lk 2:35) by the torture inflicted on the innocent one born of her flesh. Just as Jesus cried (cf. Jn 11:35), so too Mary certainly cried over the tortured body of her Son.

Her self-restraint, however, prevents us from plumbing the depths of her grief; the full extent of her suffering is merely suggested by the traditional symbol of the seven swords.

As in the case of her Son Jesus, one might say that she too was led to perfection through this suffering (cf. Heb 2:10), so as to make her capable of receiving the new spiritual mission that her Son entrusts to her immediately before “giving up his spirit” (cf. Jn 19:30): that of becoming the mother of Christ in his members.

In that hour, through the figure of the beloved disciple, Jesus presents each of his disciples to his Mother when he says to her: Behold your Son (cf. Jn 19:26-27).

Today Mary dwells in the joy and the glory of the Resurrection. The tears shed at the foot of the Cross have been transformed into a smile which nothing can wipe away, even as her maternal compassion towards us remains unchanged.

The intervention of the Virgin Mary in offering succour throughout history testifies to this, and does not cease to call forth, in the people of God, an unshakable confidence in her: the Memorare prayer expresses this sentiment very well.

Mary loves each of her children, giving particular attention to those who, like her Son at the hour of his Passion, are prey to suffering; she loves them quite simply because they are her children, according to the will of Christ on the Cross.

The psalmist, seeing from afar this maternal bond which unites the Mother of Christ with the people of faith, prophesies regarding the Virgin Mary that “the richest of the people … will seek your smile” (Ps 44:13).

In this way, at the instigation of the inspired word of Scripture, Christians have always sought the smile of Our Lady, this smile which medieval artists were able to represent with such marvellous skill and to show to advantage.

This smile of Mary is for all; but it is directed quite particularly to those who suffer, so that they can find comfort and solace therein.

To seek Mary’s smile is not an act of devotional or outmoded sentimentality, but rather the proper expression of the living and profoundly human relationship which binds us to her whom Christ gave us as our Mother.

To wish to contemplate this smile of the Virgin, does not mean letting oneself be led by an uncontrolled imagination. Scripture itself discloses it to us through the lips of Mary when she sings the Magnificat: “My soul glorifies the Lord, my spirit exults in God my Saviour” (Lk 1:46-47).

When the Virgin Mary gives thanks to the Lord, she calls us to witness. Mary shares, as if by anticipation, with us, her future children, the joy that dwells in her heart, so that it can become ours. Every time we recite the Magnificat, we become witnesses of her smile.

Here in Lourdes, in the course of the apparition of Wednesday 3 March 1858, Bernadette contemplated this smile of Mary in a most particular way. It was the first response that the Beautiful Lady gave to the young visionary who wanted to know who she was.

Before introducing herself, some days later, as “the Immaculate Conception”, Mary first taught Bernadette to know her smile, this being the most appropriate point of entry into the revelation of her mystery.

In the smile of the most eminent of all creatures, looking down on us, is reflected our dignity as children of God, that dignity which never abandons the sick person. This smile, a true reflection of God’s tenderness, is the source of an invincible hope.

Unfortunately we know only too well: the endurance of suffering can upset life’s most stable equilibrium, it can shake the firmest foundations of confidence, and sometimes even leads people to despair of the meaning and value of life.

There are struggles that we cannot sustain alone, without the help of divine grace. When speech can no longer find the right words, the need arises for a loving presence: we seek then the closeness not only of those who share the same blood or are linked to us by friendship, but also the closeness of those who are intimately bound to us by faith.

Who could be more intimate to us than Christ and his holy Mother, the Immaculate One? More than any others, they are capable of understanding us and grasping how hard we have to fight against evil and suffering.

The Letter to the Hebrews says of Christ that he “is not unable to sympathize with our weaknesses; for in every respect he has been tempted as we are” (cf. Heb 4:15).

I would like to say, humbly, to those who suffer and to those who struggle and are tempted to turn their backs on life: turn towards Mary!

Within the smile of the Virgin lies mysteriously hidden the strength to fight against sickness, in support of life. With her, equally, is found the grace to accept without fear or bitterness to leave this world at the hour chosen by God.

How true was the insight of that great French spiritual writer, Dom Jean-Baptiste Chautard, who in "L’âme de tout apostolat," proposed to the devout Christian to gaze frequently “into the eyes of the Virgin Mary”!

Yes, to seek the smile of the Virgin Mary is not a pious infantilism, it is the aspiration, as Psalm 44 says, of those who are “the richest of the people” (verse 13).

“The richest”, that is to say, in the order of faith, those who have attained the highest degree of spiritual maturity and know precisely how to acknowledge their weakness and their poverty before God.

In the very simple manifestation of tenderness that we call a smile, we grasp that our sole wealth is the love God bears us, which passes through the heart of her who became our Mother.

To seek this smile, is first of all to have grasped the gratuitousness of love; it is also to be able to elicit this smile through our efforts to live according to the word of her Beloved Son, just as a child seeks to elicit its mother’s smile by doing what pleases her. And we know what pleases Mary, thanks to the words she spoke to the servants at Cana: “Do whatever he tells you” (cf. Jn 2:5).

Mary’s smile is a spring of living water. “He who believes in me”, says Jesus, “out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water” (Jn 7:38). Mary is the one who believed and, from her womb, rivers of living water have flowed forth to irrigate human history.

The spring that Mary pointed out to Bernadette here in Lourdes is the humble sign of this spiritual reality. From her believing heart, from her maternal heart, flows living water which purifies and heals. By immersing themselves in the baths at Lourdes, how many people have discovered and experienced the gentle maternal love of the Virgin Mary, becoming attached to her in order to bind themselves more closely to the Lord!

In the liturgical sequence of this feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, Mary is honoured under the title of Fons amoris, “fount of love”. From Mary’s heart, there springs up a gratuitous love which calls forth a response of filial love, called to ever greater refinement.

Like every mother, and better than every mother, Mary is the teacher of love. That is why so many sick people come here to Lourdes, to quench their thirst at the “spring of love” and to let themselves be led to the sole source of salvation, her son Jesus the Saviour.

Christ imparts his salvation by means of the sacraments, and especially in the case of those suffering from sickness or disability, by means of the grace of the sacrament of the sick.

For each individual, suffering is always something alien. It can never be tamed. That is why it is hard to bear, and harder still – as certain great witnesses of Christ’s holiness have done – to welcome it as a significant element in our vocation, or to accept, as Bernadette expressed it, to “suffer everything in silence in order to please Jesus”.

To be able to say that, it is necessary to have travelled a long way already in union with Jesus. Here and now, though, it is possible to entrust oneself to God’s mercy, as manifested through the grace of the sacrament of the sick.

Bernadette herself, in the course of a life that was often marked by sickness, received this sacrament four times. The grace of this sacrament consists in welcoming Christ the healer into ourselves.

However, Christ is not a healer in the manner of the world. In order to heal us, he does not remain outside the suffering that is experienced; he eases it by coming to dwell within the one stricken by illness, to bear it and live it with him.

Christ’s presence comes to break the isolation which pain induces. Man no longer bears his burden alone: as a suffering member of Christ, he is conformed to Christ in his self-offering to the Father, and he participates, in him, in the coming to birth of the new creation.

Without the Lord’s help, the yoke of sickness and suffering weighs down on us cruelly. By receiving the sacrament of the sick, we seek to carry no other yoke than that of Christ, strengthened through his promise to us that his yoke will be easy to carry and his burden light (cf. Mt 11:30).

I invite those who are to receive the sacrament of the sick during this Mass to enter into a hope of this kind.

The Second Vatican Council presented Mary as the figure in whom the entire mystery of the Church is typified (cf. Lumen Gentium 63-65). Her personal journey outlines the profile of the Church, which is called to be just as attentive to those who suffer as she herself was.

I extend an affectionate greeting to those working in the areas of public health and nursing, as well as those who, in different ways, in hospitals and other institutions, are contributing to the care of the sick with competence and generosity.

Equally, I should like to say to all the hospitaliers [nurse aides], the brancardiers [stretcher bearers] and the caregivers who come from every diocese in France and from further afield, and who throughout the year attend the sick who come on pilgrimage to Lourdes, how much their service is appreciated. They are the arms of the servant Church.

Finally, I wish to encourage those who, in the name of their faith, receive and visit the sick, especially in hospital infirmaries, in parishes or, as here, at shrines. May you always sense in this important and delicate mission the effective and fraternal support of your communities!

And in this connection, I also greet and thank especially my brothers in the episcopate, the French bishops, the foreign bishops and the priests, all of whom are accompanying the sick and suffering men of this world. Thank you for your service with the suffering Lord.

The service of charity that you offer is a Marian service. Mary entrusts her smile to you, so that you yourselves may become, in faithfulness to her son, springs of living water. Whatever you do, you do in the name of the Church, of which Mary is the purest image. May you carry her smile to everyone!

To conclude, I wish to join in the prayer of the pilgrims and the sick, and to pray with you a passage from the prayer to Mary that has been proposed for this Jubilee celebration:

“Because you are the smile of God, the reflection of the light of Christ, the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit, Because you chose Bernadette in her lowliness, because you are the morning star, the gate of heaven and the first creature to experience the resurrection, Our Lady of Lourdes”, with our brothers and sisters whose hearts and bodies are in pain, we pray to you!



I apologize that I posted the text of the homily rather late. I had thought all the while I had posted it this morning soon after I had the first photos.

After the ineffable poetry of the Holy Father's meditation on the Eucharist on Saturday afternoon, he gives us this lyrical rhapsody on Mary's smile and a deeply felt reflection on the Christian way of suffering.

It takes great intellect - and an even greater soul - for anyone who must convey the same message day in and day out, in a variety of situations, to the most diverse groups as well as to the world at large, to be able to constantly find new and beautiful and effective ways of saying it. No one else on earth but a Pope is called on to do this, and it is just awesome - and truly providential - that in Benedict XVI, we have someone who more than meets the challenge.

BENEDICTUS QUI VENIT IN NOMINE DOMINI!







Pope celebrates Mass for the sick
by ANGELA DOLAND



LOURDES, France, Sept. 15 (AP) - Pope Benedict XVI urged ailing pilgrims to accept death "at the hour chosen by God," reasserting the Vatican's opposition to euthanasia on Monday at an open-air Mass for the sick.

Benedict administered the sacrament of the sick to pilgrims in wheelchairs and on gurneys, many bundled in quilts against the chill.

In his homily, the Pope said the ill should pray to find "the grace to accept, without fear or bitterness, to leave this world at the hour chosen by God." The Vatican vehemently maintains that life must continue to its natural end.

The message has special resonance in Europe. Belgium and the Netherlands have legalized euthanasia, and Switzerland allows counselors or physicians to prepare a lethal dose, though patients must take it on their own.

France permits patients to refuse treatment that can keep them alive but stops short of allowing euthanasia. The debate in France was revived this year with the death of a woman whose tumor burrowed through her head, leaving her with constant pain, hemorrhaging and difficulty eating.

Benedict's Mass for the sick outside the gold mosaic facade of the Basilica of the Rosary was the final stop of his visit to Lourdes. The shrine in the foothills of the French Pyrenees draws 6 million pilgrims a year, many of whom believe that Lourdes' spring water has the power to heal and even work miracles.

Helped by attendants, the sick bathe in pools of the cool water and take it home in plastic jugs and vials in the shape of the Virgin Mary. Thousands of people have claimed to be cured here, and the Roman Catholic church has officially recognized 67 incidents of miraculous healing linked to Lourdes.

At the close of Mass, Benedict anointed 10 ailing pilgrims, ranging from a teenage boy to an elderly nun in a white habit. He gently touched their foreheads and palms with oil and addressed each one in his or her own language.

The Pope urged the ailing to remember that "dignity never abandons the sick person."

"Unfortunately we know only too well: the endurance of suffering can upset life's most stable equilibrium, it can shake the firmest foundations of confidence, and sometimes even leads people to despair of the meaning and value of life," the pope said.

"There are struggles that we cannot sustain alone, without the help of divine grace," he said.

Maryse Bargain, a 48-year-old woman from the Brittany region of northwest France, was among those praying for healing. She expressed hope that the pope, "someone else or the Virgin" might help cure the blindness she has suffered from since birth.

Benedict planned his trip to mark the 150th anniversary of visions of the Virgin Mary to a Lourdes peasant girl, 14-year-old Bernadette Soubirous, who was later named a saint. On Monday he wrapped up a visit of sites linked to Bernadette's life, stopping at the chapel where she received her First Communion.

After Mass the Pope was to depart for Rome, then return to his summer retreat in nearby Castel Gandolfo. His four-day trip to Paris and Lourdes was his first to France since his election as Pontiff in 2005.


[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 16/09/2008 06:24]
15/09/2008 12:25
 
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Benedict XVI urges redefining
State-Church divide in France

By RACHEL DONADIO

September 15, 2008


LOURDES, France — Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday renewed his call to redefine church-state relations in France and urged the Roman Catholic clergy to engage in meaningful interreligious dialogue.

Speaking to French bishops on Sunday in Lourdes, a pilgrimage site since the late 19th century, the pope encouraged initiatives that fostered “reciprocal knowledge and respect, as well as the promotion of dialogue,” but warned of “those which lead to impasses.”

He added: “Good will is not enough.”

In his speech to the bishops, the pope also amplified his call for a redefinition of laïcité, the divide between church and state, that he first raised at a visit to the Élysée Palace in Paris on Friday.

“Your President has intimated that this is possible,” the pope said Sunday, referring to President Nicolas Sarkozy, who has broken French tradition — and angered his Socialist opposition — in calling for a “positive secularism.”

“The social and political presuppositions of past mistrust or even hostility are gradually disappearing,” the Pope said. But, he added, “the church does not claim the prerogative of the state.”

The Pope arrived Saturday in this rocky southwestern city to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the year a local 14-year-old peasant girl, Bernadette Soubirous, claimed to have seen visions of the Virgin Mary.

An estimated 150,000 people attended an open-air Mass on Sunday morning, in which Benedict told worshipers that “the power of love is stronger than the evil that threatens us.”

On Monday the Pope was expected to celebrate a Mass for the sick before returning to Rome.





With Pope's visit,
Sarkozy challenges French secularism

By Robert Marquand




The only commentary so far in the American media on the Pope's visit to France to make it to the Yahoo news roundup is really a commentary on President Sarkozy and the whole issue of secularism and secularization in general.

But still I find it outrageous and journalistically unforgivable that a seasoned reporter like Marquand could say something like he does in the last line of the article, about Pope Benedict XVI: "But in France, he has been something of an enigma, following the relative popularity of the more liberal Pope John Paul II." 'More liberal'! That would be news indeed to the good John Paul in the house of the Father!





PARIS, Sept. 15 - Pope Benedict XVI's first visit to France is providing President Nicolas Sarkozy another opportunity to fulfill a campaign promise – to rock the boat.

Unlike any French President in decades, Mr. Sarkozy sees a more open role for religion in French society. And he seized upon the conservative German Pope's four-day trip to directly challenge French secularism, one of the most prized traditions of La Republique and a strict legal and cultural sanction against bringing matters of church and faith into the public realm.

Secularism, or laicite [secularity!], is central to the modern French identity. It's a result of hundreds of years of efforts to remove the influence of the Roman Catholic church from French institutions and reduce its moral authority. French media don't discuss religion. At offices or work, most French believers don't tell colleagues they are going to mass or church. It is seen as a private matter.

Yet here on Friday Sarkozy and his wife, Carla Bruni, broke protocol and met the Pope at the airport. They hosted the Pontiff at the Elysee Palace, attended a papal talk at a newly restored Cistercian monastery in downtown Paris in front of 700 intellectuals and artists – where Sarkozy openly argued that while secularism is important, it should not be a hostile force that forbids all talk of God, faith, and transcendence. Sarkozy called for a "positive laicite" that allows religion to help forge an ethical society.

It is "legitimate for democracy and respectful of secularism to have a dialogue with religions," Sarkozy said at the palace with the pope. "That is why I have called for a positive secularism," adding that "It would be madness to ignore [religion.]"

Benedict, for his part, called for a "healthy secularism," stating that "it is fundamental to become more aware of the irreplaceable role of religion for the formation of consciences and the contribution which it can bring ...."

Sarkozy is almost alone among French politicians in raising the issue of laicite in a society where the numbers of Catholic churchgoers are in a steep decline.

Speaking of the Pope's effort to revive interest in Catholicism, and Sarkozy's injection of faith into public discourse, the left-wing daily Liberation ran a headline calling it "Mission impossible."

Critics of the French President say it is not the province of a man elected to uphold the laws of the French republic to talk about God. They say he is violating the basic law of 1905, which came after decades of bitter battles with the Catholic church, that firmly consigns religion to the private sphere.

After the comments by Sarkozy and the Pope Friday, leading Socialist Party member Julian Dray said that "religion is an individual view in a state that respects religion. The president has to be the guardian of those principles."

Yet this has not stopped the French head of state from routinely shocking France on the subject. Last year, Sarkozy went to the Vatican and eloquently argued for a more robust religious dialogue in France, saying that "a person who believes is a person who hopes, and it's in the interests of the Republic that there be many women and men who nourish hope."

In January, he addressed Saudi Arabia's Shura Council (a council of 150 government-appointed advisors to the king), using the word God 14 times – something unheard of by a French president – in a speech arguing for greater understanding of Islam.

One French Assembly member said later that she found the word God "not in each paragraph, but in each sentence."

"We have to watch Nicolas Sarkozy when he travels," said the French magazine Marianne. "Outside our borders, our President can reveal himself to be a passionate missionary for Christ.... Traveling in Arab lands, [he] transformed himself into a fanatical zealot for Islam."

Yet political insiders say Sarkozy is calculating that he will be able to change at least the terms of public expression in France – if not the deeper roots of laicite, which include the status of churches and religious exercise. Sarkozy is appealing to conservative Catholics, 70 percent of whom voted for him.

He is addressing a post-secular generation in the West, where ideas of transcendence, of a spiritual dimension to life, are widely discussed in everything from New Age seminars to the Internet and popular film. He is also speaking to a growing Muslim population in France that is unashamedly willing to wear its faith on its sleeve – or in covering its head.

More controversial are Sarkozy statements that teachers aren't as important as priests in the transmission of values – since many of the religious wars in France in the late 19th century were between the church and public schools.

Still, it is an uphill battle for the President. The 1905 law is popular, almost sacred, here. Churches and communities of faith understand they should not discuss, let alone promote, faith. French city and town officials, media groups, and schools, strictly adhere to the laicite concept.

Subway advertisements for the recent opening of the Catholic center in downtown Paris, for example, where the Pope spoke on Friday, did not mention that the center, designed as a place of cultural outreach, was Catholic.

"If we mentioned that it was Catholic, no one would come," says a staff member who requested anonymity. [As though Parisians were so ignorant as not to know something called 'College des Bernardins' was Catholic - the same way that every Frenchman knows Notre Dame and Cluny are Catholic! The Bernardins are 12th century order of monks reformed by St. Bernard of Clairvaux.]

Yet while cultural strictures on talking or expressing faith may be strong, French courts are increasingly dealing with the accommodation of religious practice – mostly in cases of Muslim marriage and divorce, dress in public places, and other issues.

As interior minister, Sarkozy helped create a Muslim council in France, to go along with similar groups among Protestants and Jews. In a current divorce case in Lille, a Muslim man is attempting to divorce his wife based on a claim that she was not a virgin when she was married.

Under laicite, the legal status of churches and communities of faith are in a grey zone. The French assembly has issued two reports describing some 172 "cults" in France that are not allowed status as religious communities – causing anger and cries of injustice. particularly among Jehovah's Witness members, who were recently taken off the cult list. (Others on the list include the Plymouth Brethren; Soka Gakkai, the largest Buddhist group in the world; the Scientology church; and numerous small evangelical groups.)

The papal visit here, which included a Mass attended by more than 200,000 on Saturday, and a visit to Lourdes, site of Catholic pilgrimages, ends Monday. It's billed as an opportunity for the French to meet the Pope.

The Catholic church has significant clout inside states like Poland, Spain, and Italy. Germans are proud of the German-born Pope, formerly Cardinal Ratzinger.

But in France, he has been something of an enigma, following the relative popularity of the more liberal Pope John Paul II.






Speaking of journalistic inattention, to understate it, what about John Thavis's blog on the Pope's Lourdes trip? "People 'discovered' he has a Marian side, too"? What are all those Angelus prayers every Sunday and religious holiday but Marian? And the remarkable number of Marian shrines he has visited as Pope before Lourdes? And all his great homilies about Mary and the 'Yes' that began the history of salvation? And his books on Mary, for heaven's sake! In fact, by the logic of the faith, every Pope - like every Catholic - is inevitably Marian.



A Pope for Mary
by John Thavis

Sept. 13, 2008


LOURDES, France — Pope Benedict XVI is known to the world as a bookish theologian and an academic. When he arrived at the French sanctuary of Lourdes Saturday afternoon, people discovered he has a “Marian” side, too.

The Pope first stopped at the parish church where St. Bernadette Soubirous was baptized, and then visited the small house — a former prison not much bigger than a cell — where the young girl and her family lived in the mid-19th century. There, he kissed her rosary and said a prayer.

Next the Pope went to the grotto at the base of a rocky cliff, where Bernadette experienced 18 apparitions of Mary 150 years ago. Like millions of pilgrims each year, he paused to take a drink of water from the spring she discovered there, said to have miraculous powers.

I was among the group of reporters at the grotto, watching the proceedings through the umbrellas of bishops who stood near the pontiff in a steady rain.

Earlier in the day, we had flown down with the Pope on his plane from Paris, where he spent about 30 hours in events with politicians, academics, pastoral workers and a massive crowd of faithful.

In Lourdes, the focus was clearly on Mary. [So was the religious focus in Paris - Vespers at Notre Dame, and the image of Notre Dame de Paris taken to the Invalides by that remarkable midnight procession of 60,000 youth, to be at the altar for the Pope's Mass. Indeed, Notre Dame de Paris (image and church) is a Marian shrine that is centuries older than Lourdes!]

The night of his arrival at the sanctuary, the Pope watched a torchlight evening procession in Rosary Square. Here, addressing thousands of pilgrims, he paid tribute to simple devotion.

At Lourdes, he said, Mary stirred hope and love “by giving pride of place to the sick, the poor and the little ones.”

“In this shrine at Lourdes … we are invited to discover the simplicity of our vocation: it is enough to love,” he said.

The traditional nighttime procession stems from St. Bernadette’s habit of lighting a candle when Mary would appear to her. Today, the Pope said, the light from pilgrims’ torches represents a powerful symbol against the darkness of sin.

The procession expresses the mystery of prayer in a form that everyone can grasp, like a luminous path in the dark, he said. It should also remind Christians of those who suffer, he said.

“We think of innocent victims who suffer from violence, war, terrorism and famine; those who bear the consequences of injustices, scourges and disasters, hatred and oppression; of attacks on their human dignity and fundamental rights; on their freedom to act and think,” he said.

The Pope remembered those experiencing family problems, illness, unemployment or loneliness, as well as difficulties related to immigration. Those who have suffered or died for Christ must not be forgotten, either, he said.

He described Lourdes pilgrimages as leading to a spiritual place “between heaven and earth.” Pilgrims may come secretly hoping to receive some miracle, he said, but more often leave with a different kind of spiritual experience and a changed outlook.

“A small flame called hope, compassion, tenderness now dwells within them. A quiet encounter with Bernadette and the Virgin Mary can change a person’s life,” he said.

On the plane carrying him to France, the Pope told journalists that his April 16 birthday fell on the feast of St. Bernadette [the day she died], and for that reason he felt very close to her. [Alessandra Borghese wrote a brief item on this two years ago, saying memorably that Joseph Ratzinger's birthday on earth was Bernadette's birthday in heaven.]

He said that at Lourdes, people encounter Mary and find that “the mother’s love” is what provides true healing for all sickness and suffering.

“I think this is a very important sign for our era,” he said.




THE POPE AND MARY

Here's another poster I just 'discovered'. PETRUS used it today - and I figure it must be from an Italian group that promotes trips to Lourdes. I like the Art Nouveau style.







John Thavis does have some valid observations on US coverage - i.e., non-coverage - of the Pope's visit to France. Not that they covered his trip to Sydney any better, by the way.


'Laicitè' and lipstick
by John Thavis

sePT. 13, 2008


PARIS — When covering Pope Benedict’s travels, journalists sometimes feel they’re in a parallel news universe, far from the realm of political mudslinging or hurricane tracking.

In this universe, theological and philosophical ideas are the stuff of stories. It matters if the pope uses a phrase like “positive laicitè.” Attention is duly paid to his citations of church thinkers who died many centuries ago. And reporters try to distill a lead from the Pontiff’s explication of medieval monasticism and its impact on Western culture.

There were signs in France, however, that breaking into the U.S. news cycle — dominated these days by who was calling whom a pig — may not be easy for the German Pope.

The Pope’s address to academics in Paris was a case in point. The speech came with a Vatican build-up. We were told earlier in the week by the Vatican spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi, that this was big, that it would treat the theme of faith and reason, and that the pope was working hard to hone the text.

It would come almost exactly two years after the pope’s address at the University of Regensburg in Germany. That speech, as we all remembered, was supposed to be a dry academic treatise and turned out to be a bombshell because of what it said about Islam and religious fanaticism. [No! - decidedly not 'because of what it said about Islam and religious fanaticism' - it would have been treated routinely if the media had not singled out that citation from nauel II Paleologue!]

His speech Friday night in Paris, however, did not offer many catch phrases or easy news hooks. [That may be the average American newsman's view, but even French intellectuals - and the French media who claim to be among the country's intellectual elite - know to treat a major philosophical discourse as news, especially one as original as the Pope's - which is rare from a modern-day Pope.]

It presented his strongly argued case that the connection between Western civilization and Christian theology runs deep, and that Christian values cannot simply be jettisoned today, as if they were unreasonable or a merely sentimental indulgence.

The Pope’s historical survey of the contributions of the “culture of monasticism” was long and detailed, touching on monastic scholarship, Scripture, worship and work. It drew from many sources and was studded with Latin phrases.

Most French media found the Pope’s content worthy of consideration. ['Worthy of consideration' sounds condescending, but that was not at all the tone of how the major French media addressed the address. They were more than just respectful; they were very impressed! It was indeed a “theology lesson,” as the newspaper Le Figaro put it, but one worth some space. Even the leftist daily Liberation described the talk as an erudite contribution to an ongoing debate.

I’m guessing that this speech won’t make much impact in the mainstream U.S. media. It just didn’t push the right buttons. A quick check of newspaper Web sites, in fact, shows that the Pope’s trip to France so far is ending up in the “around the world” briefs column.

Maybe this trip is just too geared to a European audience. Or maybe in these days of Sarah and Ike, Benedict’s message is bound to make fewer waves in the United States.



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PILGRIMAGE TO LOURDES
DAY 3 (Conclusion)



Completing the Jubilee Way at the Hospice of Lourdes.

The Holy Father completed the last stage of the Jubilee Way today by visiting the Oratory
(chapel) of the Hospice of St. Joseph where St. Berandette received her First Communion.



MASS FOR THE SICK










And here are Caterina's video-caps of the Mass:










I must make a quick comment on the Masses in France.

1) It was very noticeable that there were no Communion kneelers at any of the three Masses - I thought to myself, can the local bishops be so petty as to make an issue of having a prie-dieu for communicants before the Pope? I can find no other explanation! At least, everyone who came to the Pope received the Host on the tongue, not in their hands.

2) I never heard so much Latin in Papal Masses before - and how beautiful it was! The French bishops (Vingt-Trois and Perrier) have excellent pronunciation, as of course, the Pope and Cardinal Bertone. The kneelers were a good trade-off - if that's what it was for Mons. Guido - in return for using Latin for all the prayers that had to do directly with the 'Sacrifice' (recreating Chrit's Sacrifice) part of the Mass, leaving the prayers with specific intentions in French or other languages. The Pater Noster chanted aloud by everyone in Latin is particularly stirring.

3) It says a lot for the French that the music for all the Masses was in very good taste, even if it was obviously not 'classical'. They were invariably beautiful to listen to, and they had the appropriate tempi, as well - lively and well-paced, never any dull or lagging measures! And they had flute music or organ music for the Communion interval.

To get on to another subject: Anyone who listened to EWTN's coverage of the Pope's address at Bernardins must agree that the Vatican Radio person in charge of doing the running translation should be disciplined by at least a month without pay, with daily lectures on how to read a Papal text aloud!

He read the Pope's magnificent discourse - and I am sure he was reading from the official translation - as if he were rattling off the names in a telephone book, and like someone who felt he could not be bothered to do the job! It was so appalling I had to turn the sound off, happy that I heard the original broadcast on CTV without the annoying readovers, but gnashing my teeth for being deprived of another occasion to listen to the Pope's exquisite French (well, in fairness, I would have been deprived anyway, even if one of the more comme-il-faut female commentators were doing the readover).

I don't begrudge them reading over - what I resent and protest very strongly is that whoever is responsible for the feed turns down the Pope's volume so low you can hardly hear him when they are talking over him! We all want to hear the Pope, even in a language we don't understand, not the translator's voice imposed on the listener by force majeure beyond his control! Is that not irreverence for the Pope to drown out his voice for the sake of a translation which can well be given in a less 'insistent' manner? [Or better yet, with subtitles! If the Metropolitan Opera can afford to provide individual screens with subtitles for every patron, even in standing room, the networks who carry the Pope's broadcast can well afford to pay for a single subtitling system that will run a simultaneous translation on the screen.)

It makes me so mad, just thinking about this whole business of talking over the Pope's voice!

A word on some aesthetic aspects: The Pope's liturgical vestments on this trip were singularly undistinguished, I thought, and if the local bishops were responsible for the choices, as they would be, then their taste in music did not extend to vestments. (I also am curious why, for the Vespers at Notre Dame, the Pope wore the vestments with the Celtic braid that he has used a number of times in Rome.)

And while both the altar stages at Lourdes were compelling in design, the minimal stage at Invalides had me stumped. The back wall looked like a wooden panel that was hastily improvised, especially in the close-up's seen on TV, and about the only original thing about it was the prominent inscription across the front of the altar, saying 'Let us go to the source of life". The 12 olive trees in front of the altar stage looked like a great idea on paper, but in execution, they looked pitifully forlorn.



In contrast, the Lourdes crew very skillfully integrated their design
with the facade of the Basilica and the liturgical color of the day,
and look what a striking harmony of color and form they created!




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Apropos John Thavis's earlier blog on Benedict XVI and Mary, here is John Allen's take today - the first part of which I find highly questionable, where he says that Joseph Ratzinger's devotion to Mary is something that has developed only in the last 40 years. How can someone who has written a biography of Benedict say that?



Pope in France:
A lesson in 'Marian cool'

By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Lourdes, France


As an orator, Pope Benedict XVI generally does not, unlike his predecessor John Paul II, mine his own biography. For John Paul, the dramatic events of his life were staples of his public rhetoric. Not so with Benedict, who prefers to emphasize the song rather than the singer.

It was therefore particularly striking that one could hear faint echoes of Joseph Ratzinger’s past in his final address at Lourdes this morning, which came in an open-air Mass on a chilly morning outside the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary. The Mass was dedicated to the sick and disabled who flock to Lourdes, and many in the crowd arrived in wheelchairs or on crutches.

When the Pope said that seeking the loving smile of the Blessed Virgin Mary “is not an act of devotional or outmoded sentimentality,” that it is not “pious infantilism,” he was not merely addressing attitudes he knows to be widespread in post-Vatican II Catholicism.

He was also indirectly opening a window onto his own spiritual journey – because these are indictments of Marian piety to which the Pope himself was once tempted.

In that light, it’s an interesting exercise to discern where Benedict has come from with regard to Mary, and more importantly, where he has arrived.

In an interview in 2000, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger recalled that as a young priest and theologian, he was suspicious of Marian devotion. Influenced by the great liturgical pioneers of the early 20th century, especially Romano Guardini, he worried that para-liturgical phenomena such as Marian devotions amounted to distractions from the centrality of Christ. [Being 'suspicious of Marian devotion' as Allen baldly states implies that Ratzinger kept a distance from Marian devotion when, in fact, he and his family, like most Bavarian Catholics, were ardent devotees of the Madonna of Altoetting! It also overlooks the fact that he wrote two books on Mary before 2000 - not proof of 'devotion' necessarily, but certainly proof that he has given much theological thought to the place of Mary in the Christian religion and is giving her everything that is her due, short of being 'co-Redemptrix'.]

Moreover, coming of age in post-war Germany, the young Ratzinger was enormously sensitive to the ecumenical dimension of Christian life, and he knew that many Protestants find the Catholic emphasis on Mary unbiblical and, frankly, a flirtation with paganism.

When Ratzinger wrote his 1964 commentary on the second session of Vatican II, his most caustic language came in lampooning proposals from some pious bishops to assign Mary new dogmatic titles, such as “Co-Redemptrix,” or to consecrate the entire world to Mary. Such ideas, the young Ratzinger wrote, did not say much about the “theological enlightenment” of the prelates who floated them.
[The theological objections to the 'co-Redemptrix' proposal have nothing to do with the degree of one's Marian devotion, but with what Scripture says of Jesus's own description of his mission from the Father - which was a unique mission to a unique Redeemer. Have the co-Redemptrix advocates ever considered that 'the handmaid of the Lord' herself would be appalled to have them place her on the same rank as her Divine Son?]

In the four decades since, Benedict XVI has covered a great deal of ground. Today he feels deep affection for Mary, which he made clear this morning. [On the basis of Joseph Ratzinger's entire personal history, to imply that he has onyl gradually come to an affection for Mary in the past 40 years is clearly wrong!]

Falling in love with Mary, Benedict said, is the aspiration of “those who have attained the highest degree of spiritual maturity, and know precisely how to acknowledge their weakness and poverty before God.”

Perhaps the most telling line from this prodigious academic, for whom the written and spoken word is all-important, was the following: “When speech can no longer find the right words, the need arises for a loving presence. We seek then the closeness not only of those who share the same blood or are linked to us by friendship, but the closeness of those who are intimately bound to us by faith. Who would be more intimate to us than Christ and his holy Mother, the Immaculate One?”

One might say this “discovery” of Mary reflects Benedict’s pastoral side, his growing realization that people need to be comforted, not just catechized. It also reflects a conviction, forged in ecclesiastical battles over the years, that what Benedict once called “simple believers” often have a keener sense of the faith than erudite theological experts.

Yet Benedict XVI remains a man of reason, so even in his most tender moments of longing for Mary’s maternal smile, his critical faculties never quite go off-line. While he has moved closer to popular devotion, it is nonetheless a “purified” devotion, one in which the thaumaturgical dimension is deliberately soft-pedaled.

Lourdes attracts six million pilgrims annually for a variety of reasons, but the reputed wonder-working power of its springs is an enormous part of the appeal.

While the Church has officially recognized only 66 miracles at Lourdes (the most recent occurred in 1987), officials have discretely adopted the language of “phenomenal events” to refer to the thousands of reports of cures that pour in each year.

It’s noteworthy, therefore, that Benedict repeatedly, though gently, insisted in Lourdes that miracles are not the heart of the matter. [I think all the Popes have always emphasized that about miraculous events in general, and Marian shrines in particular!] Speaking on Saturday, the Pope indirectly cautioned against overheated expectations of divine intervention.

“How many come here to see it with the hope – secretly perhaps – of receiving some miracle,” the Pope said. “Then, on the return journey, having had a spiritual experience of life in the church, they change their outlook upon God, upon others and upon themselves.”

Today, shortly before he administered the sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick, the Pope returned to the point.

First, he argued that the real significance of the waters that Mary revealed to Bernadette 150 years ago is metaphorical.

“From [Mary’s] womb, rivers of living water have poured forth to irrigate human history,” the pope said. “The spring that Mary pointed out to Bernadette here in Lourdes is the humble sign of this spiritual reality.”

Later, Benedict reflected on what it means to regard Christ as a “healer.”

“Christ is not a healer in the manner of the world,” the Pope said – meaning that physical cure is not the point.

“In order to heal us, he does not remain outside the suffering that is experienced,” the Pope said. “He eases it by coming to dwell with the one stricken by illness, to bear it and to live with him. Christ’s presence comes to break the isolation which pain induces. Man no longer bears his burden alone. As a suffering member of Christ, he is conformed to Christ in his self-offering to the father.”

Benedict encouraged the sick and disabled to “turn to Mary,” not in the sense of seeking immediate cure, but rather for “the strength to fight against sickness in support of life,” as well as “the grace to accept without fear or bitterness to leave this world at the hour chosen by God.”

None of this means that Benedict scorns a prayerful hope for physical signs, but it is clearly not where he places the accent. [And what sensible Catholic would???? John Paul II went to Lourdes in 2004 as 'a sick person among the sick' but no one would say he went there expecting a miracle on his behalf!]

That caution is reflected in news out of Rome today, for example, that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is drawing up new, and reportedly more stringent, guidelines for the approval of alleged apparitions. (In part, the move is a response to the sensation touched off in Italy when Bishop Girolamo Grillo of Civitavecchia, the port north of Rome, seemed to endorse reports that a statue of the Madonna owned by a local family had wept tears of blood.)

It’s also evident in the policy of the CDF, adopted during Ratzinger’s years as prefect, of maintaining a discrete silence about the reported apparitions in Medjugorje.

John Paul II was arguably a bit more inclined to see the wondrous. Famously, he believed that the Virgin changed the flight path of a bullet on May 13, 1981, when Mehmet Ali Agca fired at him from close range in St. Peter’s Square. That day happened to be the feast of Our Lady of Fatima, and John Paul would later travel to Fatima to place the bullet doctors removed from his body before the statue of the Virgin to thank her for her intervention.

Despite the deepest possible respect for John Paul, Benedict might well be more hesitant to read cosmic significance into the vicissitudes of his own life.

To sum all this up in a sound-bite: In contrast to both cold skepticism and hot devotion, Benedict XVI embodies what one might call “Marian cool.” Neither cynical nor credulous, he harbors deep feeling for Mary and a keen sense of her theological importance, combined with reserve about the signs and wonders that surround eruptions of new Marian enthusiasm.

Whether “Marian cool” will sweep the Catholic world remains to be seen, but it may well be the most original feature of Benedict’s two and a half days in Lourdes. (A rather facile and dubious conclusion to make. But having been to Lourdes three times, I never once sensed among the sick pilgrims anything but 'Marian cool' to use Allen's term. I think most sick people who come to Lourdes or other 'miraculous' shrines, re realistic enough to know that being there and drinking the water will not necessarily heal them physically, even if every single one certainly prays so - but they come to draw strength from Mary and from the faith of the millions who have been there before them.)


Here are Allen's other posts on the papal trip to France.

Nothing says 'Catholic'
like the Virgin Mary

By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Lourdes, France
Sept. 13, 2008


A papal visit to Lourdes, arguably the premier Marian shrine and healing center in the Christian world, inevitably beckons reflection on two topics: the Virgin Mary and the theology of suffering. This evening, Benedict XVI delivered vintage versions of both.

2008 marks 150 years since, according to tradition, Mary appeared in Lourdes eighteen times to a 14-year-old local peasant girl named Bernadette Soubirous. Among other things, Mary is believed to have revealed the location of a hidden spring credited by devotees with the power to perform miraculous cures.

Despite skepticism from both civil and ecclesiastical authorities amid the rationalism and anti-clericalism of 19th century France, devotion to Our Lady of Lourdes spread rapidly. Bernadette was canonized by Pope Pius XI in 1933.

At the retail level of religious imagery, nothing says “Catholic” quite like the Virgin Mary, and thus it’s hardly a surprise that such a consummate Pope of Catholic identity as Benedict XVI would pay tribute to Mary at Lourdes.

In remarks to tens of thousands of pilgrims who braved cold and rainy weather to greet the pontiff, Benedict said Mary is “the sign of the victory of love, of good and of God, giving our world the hope that it needs.”

Perhaps the single best-known expression of Marian devotion is praying the rosary. Catholic tradition holds that the rosary was given by Mary to St. Dominic, and over the centuries it has become closely associated with Marian spirituality.

Benedict put special emphasis tonight on the rosary, saying that it has a “profoundly theocentric character.”

“When we pray it, Mary offers us her heart and her gaze in order to contemplate the life of her Son, Jesus Christ,” Benedict said.

Given popular faith in the healing properties of the waters at Lourdes, it is also a magnet for sick and disabled pilgrims from all over the world, many of whom come hoping for a miraculous cure.

Benedict expressed “profound communion with all who suffer.”

“We think of innocent victims who suffer from violence, war, terrorism and famine; those who bear the consequences of injustices, scourges and disasters, hatred and oppression; of attacks on their human dignity and fundamental rights; on their freedom to act and think,” the pope said.

“We also think of those undergoing family problems or suffering caused by unemployment, illness, infirmity, loneliness, or their situation as immigrants,” Benedict said. “Nor must we forget those who suffer for the name of Christ and die for him.”

Later, Benedict gently hinted that while there’s nothing wrong with praying for miraculous relief from suffering, it’s not the heart of what Lourdes – and, by extension, the Christian life – is about.

“How many come here to see it with the hope – secretly perhaps – of receiving some miracle,” the Pope said. “Then, on the return journey, having had a spiritual experience of life in the church, they change their outlook upon God, upon others and upon themselves.”

“A small flame called hope, compassion, tenderness now dwells within them,” the pope said. “A quiet encounter with Bernadette and the Virgin Mary can change a person’s life.”

Bernadette famously held a candle during most of the periods when Mary is believed to have appeared to her, and Benedict repeatedly wove the imagery of light into his remarks tonight. He called upon Catholics to "live as children of light in order to testify, every day of your lives, that Christ is our light, our hope and our life."

Upon his arrival, Benedict moved through three of the four stops on the 2008 Jubilee itinerary at Lourdes: the baptismal font where Bernadette was baptized in her parish church; an old prison which had been converted into a dwelling and where Bernadette lived with her family as a child, known as the Cachot; and the grotto at Massabielle, where Bernadette saw “the Lady”. Tomorrow, he will visit the chapel where Bernadette received her first communion.

During his brief stop at the grotto, Benedict XVI drank from a glass containing the famed waters of Lourdes.

Aside from his general commitment to Mary as a classic marker of Catholic identity, Benedict has a special biographical connection to Bernadette. Her feast day, April 16, also happens to be the Pope’s birthday.

Americans may be most familiar with the story of Lourdes from the famous film “The Song of Bernadette,” based on the Franz Werfel novel by the same name. The movie won four Academy Awards in 1944.

Lourdes draws an estimated six million visitors annually. Over 30 full-time chaplains serve at the sanctuary, along with 700 volunteers, and five religious communities plus one lay movement are devoted to providing spiritual and logistical help. The shrine has an annual budget of over $25 million, with more than 90 percent of those funds coming from donations.

While some trips take the Pope onto unfriendly turf, Lourdes is undoubtedly one of the most deeply Catholic spots on earth, and the pilgrims gathered tonight showed keen enthusiasm for their shepherd. When the Pope arrived for the conclusion of a torchlight procession, roars went up to such an extent that two priests actually had to shush the crowd before a gospel passage could be read.



The Cross, Mary, and hope
for 'new vigor' in the Church

By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Lourdes, France
Sept. 14, 2008


On the Catholic calendar, today is the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, and during a Mass in Lourdes this morning Pope Benedict XVI delivered a powerful meditation on the Christian understanding of suffering.

The Pope also continued his reflection on Mary, marking the 150th anniversary of what believers regard as the 18 appearances of Mary to St. Bernadette Soubirous in the grotto of Lourdes in 1858.

Benedict expressed hope that this Jubilee year at Lourdes will offer “new vigor” and “a breath of new life” to the church, a message with special relevance in France – where Catholicism suffers from low Mass attendance rates, a deepening priest shortage, and the impact of an ultra-secular ethos.

Speaking to a crowd estimated at over 100,000, Benedict noted that Bernadette had said “the Lady” whom she saw began her appearances with the sign of the Cross. The Pope called this simple gesture, repeated daily by Catholics all over the world, “a kind of synthesis of our faith.”

“The power of love is stronger than the evil which threatens us,” he said. “It is this mystery of the universality of God’s love for men that Mary came to reveal here, in Lourdes.”

Benedict said that Jesus on the Cross took upon himself the suffering of all human beings, across time and space.

“He bore the humiliation and the discrimination, the torture suffered in many parts of the world by so many of our brothers and sisters for the love of Christ,” the Pope said. He called for compassion and solidarity for “the sick, the poor and all who suffer.”

The universal saving message of the Cross, Benedict said, should impel the church to renew its “missionary spirit.”

With regard to Mary, the Pope argued that the Mother of God offers a model for authentic human living. By offering herself completely to God, he said, she discovered her true freedom and her true dignity.

“To give oneself fully to God is to find the path of true freedom,” the Pope said. “For by turning towards God, man becomes himself. He rediscovers his original vocation as a person created in his image and likeness.”

This is a classic theme of Benedict XVI, which is worked out at length in Pope John Paul II’s 1998 encyclical Fides et Ratio, to which then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was a principal contributor. The core idea is that real freedom does not mean the absence of restraint, the freedom to do anything one chooses; real freedom instead means the freedom to become the kind of woman or man God wishes one to be.

Benedict said that the Virgin Mary “invites us to live like her in invincible hope, refusing to believe those who claim that we are trapped in the fatal power of destiny.” He recommended praying the rosary, a classic form of Marian devotion.

Finally, the Pope addressed himself specifically to young people, calling them to take seriously the vocation either to marriage, or to the priesthood and religious life.

“Do not be afraid to say yes to the Lord’s summons when he invites you to walk in his footsteps,” Benedict said.

Pilgrims began streaming through Lourdes well before dawn this morning, moving to the Mass site on a large field near the Gave river.

Reflecting Lourdes’s character as a global pilgrimage destination, readings and prayers during the Mass were offered in a variety of languages: Dutch, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, English, Tamil, Arabic, and Moré (a language used principally in Burkina Faso, but also in Benin, the Ivory Coast, Ghana, Mali and Tongo.)

Prior to the Mass, a group of chaplains at Lourdes led the assembly through a “virtual Jubilee,” offering reflections in five different languages on the four stops on the Lourdes Jubilee itinerary: the baptismal font in Bernadette’s local parish church; the small stone dwelling, a former prison, in which she and her family lived; the grotto where Mary appeared to her; and the chapel where she received her first communion.



Eucharist is Jesus
'past, present and future'

By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Lourdes, France
Sept. 14, 2008


Pope Benedict XVI offered a prayerful mediation on the Eucharist this evening in Lourdes, calling the consecrated host “the eternal presence of the savior of mankind to his church.”

The Pope spoke at the close of a Eucharistic procession in Lourdes, the French site made famous by the appearances of the Virgin Mary to St. Bernadette Soubirous in 1858.

While tonight’s reflection was spiritual and, at turns, even poetic, it also reflects a key leadership priority for Benedict XVI: promoting a deeper sense of Catholic identity in order to protect believers against the secular ethos of the West: faith in the real presence of Christ in the consecrated bread and wine at Mass is a cornerstone of that identity.

Garbed in white liturgical vestments, Benedict said that the Eucharist makes Jesus present “past, present and future.”

“Jesus Christ, past, in the historical truth of the evening in the Upper Room, to which every celebration of holy Mass leads us back,” the pope said.

“Jesus Christ, present, because he said to us: ‘Take and eat of this, all of you, this is my body, this is my blood,’” the Pope said. “‘This is', in the present, here and now, as in every here and now throughout human history. The real presence, the presence which surpasses our poor lips, our poor hearts, our poor thoughts. The presence offered for us to gaze upon as we do here, this evening, close to the grotto where Mary revealed herself as the Immaculate Conception.”

“The Eucharist is also Jesus Christ, future, Jesus Christ to come,” the Pope said.

“When we contemplate the sacred host, his glorious transfigured and risen Body, we contemplate what we shall contemplate in eternity, where we shall discover that the whole world has been carried by its Creator during every second of its history. Each time we consume him, but also each time we contemplate him, we proclaim him until he comes again, donec veniat. That is why we receive him with infinite respect.”

Indirectly, Benedict addressed those Catholics excluded from the Eucharist by church discipline – for example, Catholics who have divorced and remarried without an annulment of their first marriage.

“Some of us cannot – or cannot yet – receive Him in the Sacrament,” the Pope said, “but we can contemplate Him with faith and love and express our desire finally to be united with Him.”

“This desire has great value in God’s presence,” Benedict said. “Such people await his return more ardently; they await Jesus Christ who must come again.”

Benedict closed by suggesting that the Eucharist carries within itself an inherently missionary dimension.

The Pope invited the crowd at Lourdes to “remain silent” for a period of adoration of the Eucharist after his remarks, but then to “tell the world” what they believe.

“We cannot be silent about what we know,” he said. “Go and tell the whole world the marvels of God, present at every moment of our lives, in every place on earth.”

After he finished speaking, Benedict knelt for a few moments of silent prayer before a monstrance, a container which exposes the consecrated host for adoration by the faithful. He then returned to the Hermitage of St. Joseph, where he is lodging during his days in Lourdes.



Traditionalists deserve
'a place in the Church'

By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Lourdes, France
Sept. 14, 2008

Catholicism is legendarily keen on tradition, which means there’s a traditionalist wing of the church pretty much everywhere. Nowhere else, however, are traditionalists so visible, and, at times, so fractious, as in France, making it all but inevitable that Pope Benedict XVI would address their signature issue while here – the old Latin Mass.

Some commentators, in fact, say the two most dynamic religious movements in France today are Islam and traditionalist Catholicism.

Benedict XVI’s 2007 ruling permitting wider celebration of the old Mass, in a document titled Summorum Pontificum*, was widely interpreted here as a victory for the traditionalist camp. It unleashed negative reactions among moderate-to-liberal Catholics, and complaints reached Rome that a handful of bishops were resisting implementation of the decree.

*The whole item refers to the Motu Proprio as 'Summorum Pontificium' with an extra 'i' where it does not belong.

Aboard the papal plane, Benedict called fears that Summorum Pontificum represents a rollback on reforms associated with the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) “absolutely unfounded.” Instead, Benedict argued, it was “an act of tolerance” toward Catholics attached to the old Mass.

Speaking today to the full body of French bishops in Lourdes, the pope offered more extended comments on Summorum Pontificum.

“Some fruits of these new arrangements have already been seen,” he said, “and I hope that, thanks be to God, the necessary pacification of spirits is already taking place.”

Some bishops have objected to the Pope’s ruling not only on theological or ideological grounds, but also in terms of its impact on their authority. By allowing priests to choose when and where to celebrate the old Mass, some bishops argue, they have lost power to govern the liturgical life of their dioceses.

“I am aware of your difficulties,” the Pope said this afternoon, “but I do not doubt that, within a reasonable time, you can find solutions satisfactory for all, lest the seamless garment of Christ be further torn.”

Most French observers heard in those words a clear expectation from the Pope that the bishops will not erect new obstacles to celebration of the old Mass.

Without mentioning the traditionalists by name, Benedict offered a strong appeal to the bishops to make sure they have a place at the table.

“Everyone has a place in the Church,” Benedict said. “Every person, without exception, should be able to feel at home, and never rejected … Let us therefore strive always to be servants of unity!”

Some French analysts predicted, however, that this papal charge may prove easier said than done. While the old Mass may be the most symbolically charged demand associated with the traditionalist movement, in many ways it’s merely the tip of the iceberg.

Many traditionalists, for example, are wary of both ecumenism and inter-religious dialogue as they’ve developed after Vatican II, fearing that they lead to compromise or confusion about the differences between Catholicism and other creeds.

They also tend to be critical of Vatican II’s teaching on religious liberty, worrying that it promotes relativism by treating all religions as equal, and on human dignity, suggesting that it can exalt the human person at the expense of God.

[It must be pointed out that the traditionalists who profess the above attitudes are limited to the Lefebvrians and the generally unorganized 'sedevacantists' - extremists who consider Peter's Chair empty since Pius XII because they consider John XXIII and everyone after him apostates in convoking and following Vatican-II. And while Lefebvrianism was born in France, I am not aware that France has a significant number of 'sedevacantists'. Most so-called 'traditionalists' are simply people like me who prefer the old rites but do not reject the Novus Ordo as a valid Mass, even if some of what has been done in its name is truly execrable. ]

That worldview has long alarmed some church leaders in France.

“Under the cover of a campaign to defend a certain type of liturgy, there is a radical critique of the Vatican Council, even outright rejection of some of its declarations,” said then-Archbishop Andre Vingt-Trois in 2006. Vingt-Trois is today the cardinal of Paris and the Pope’s official host in France. [Vingt-Trois has always over-reached on this subject. All the bishops have to do is lead their priests in preaching the right things to their flock and the world at large - instead of making the Lefebvrians to be a much more substantial threat than they actually are. They spend more time denouncing the 'integristes' than they do defending the faith!]

One key distinction in the traditionalist universe is between those so disgruntled with the post-Vatican II church that they have broken with Rome, such as the Society of St. Pius X, founded by the late French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre; and those who remain within the fold, such as the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter or the Institute of Christ the King.

Both kinds of traditionalism have deep roots in France.

It was here that Lefebvre led what many consider the only formal schism to follow Vatican II, and it was here that Dom Gerard Calvet founded the post-Vatican II traditional movement within the Benedictine order.

It’s also here that a vast network of monasteries, priestly societies, lay movements and media outlets keep alive a deeply traditional vision of Catholic faith and worship.

Benedictine abbeys such as Fontgombault, Le Barroux, Randol and Trior foster a traditional liturgical style, and a large priestly society called Opus Sacerdotale gives voice to traditionalist views. [In matters of liturgy, not against Vatican-II!]

As he has during other recent trips, Benedict has offered a nod to traditionalist sensibilities while in France. Although he is celebrating the new, post-Vatican II Mass, Benedict is administering communion to people who kneel and receive on the tongue, rather than standing and taking the consecrated host in their hand. Some traditionalists believe that communion in the hand fosters a lack of respect for the Eucharist.

A traditionalist presence at this morning’s Mass in Lourdes was much in evidence. For example, there were several flags featuring the Sacred Heart with a Cross, a traditional symbol of French monarchists. There were also young people sporting the uniform of the Association Française de Scouts et Guides Catholiques, a branch of the scouting movement close to the traditionalist movement.

Critics sometimes charge that both John Paul II and Benedict XVI have bent over backwards to accommodate traditionalists, without making similar efforts to reach out to other alienated groups in the Church which are often substantially larger. [What alienated groups? The cafeteria Catholics? of course, they are much much more substantial, but Popes do not and should not placate those groups. Popes preach Catholic doctrine as it is, take it or leave it.]

Even in France, observers say that traditionalism, despite its high profile, remains a small minority. [There you are! The French bishops have been fighting windmills!]

La Vie, a French Catholic journal, recently reported that even after the Pope’s ruling opening the door to wider celebration of the old Mass, only 181 of the country’s some 16,500 Catholic parishes actually offer it. One observer estimates that perhaps 50,000 French Catholics regularly attend the old Mass, out of a total Catholic population of around 40 million.

Yet in a country where less than ten percent of all Catholics attend Mass, and where only one in two baptized Catholics still identifies with the church, it doesn’t take huge numbers to make a stir.

The resurgence of traditionalism here has sometimes been a source of heartburn for the French bishops, who privately complain that traditionalists are cantankerous and resistant to authority.

That may come as a surprise for Catholics in other parts of the world, who tend to associate conservatism in the church with a deep emphasis on obedience, especially to the Pope.

In Europe, however, observers of the Catholic scene distinguish between two forms of traditionalism: the “Mediterranean” model, associated above all with Italy, where the guiding idea is the authority of Il papa re, the “pope-king”; and the “Gallic” model, rooted in France, which sees the Pope as the guardian of a body of traditions which he cannot compromise without endangering the faith itself. As a result, the authority of the Pope and the bishops is less central than the content of tradition itself.

Benedict’s bottom line, judging from his message today, is that he wants the traditionalists and the rest of the French Church to figure out how to work and play well with another – leaving it to the bishops to figure out how to pull that off. [It is something they should have been doing since 1988 when Lefebvre pulled his stunt, instead of wringing their hands as they have done and moaning "Woe is me! Why do the 'integristes' fill their Churches while we are losing our flock?"]

Other important points from this afternoon’s address to the bishops include:

• A call for renewed commitment to religious education, reminding the bishops that “catechism is not first and foremost a question of method, but of content”;
• Asking the bishops to promote vocations to the priesthood and religious life;
• A reminder that priests cannot delegate their “specific functions,” such as celebrating the sacraments, to lay people – a sensitive point in a country suffering a priest shortage in which laity are increasingly taking over roles once played by priests;
• A strong defense of the family based on lifelong marriage between a man and a woman, against pressures to “adapt to the mores and demands of particular individuals or groups” rather than “to promote the common good of society.”

Benedict also demanded respect for church teaching which bars divorce and remarriage without an annulment, saying that “initiatives aimed at blessing irregular unions cannot be admitted”;
• Calling upon the bishops to promote “France's Christian roots,” arguing that church and state should work together to build “a harmonious society”;
• Support for ecumenical and inter-religious dialogue, which he described as a “noble and obligatory task for every believer,” but a reminder that dialogue must not mean fuzziness about the truth


[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 16/09/2008 00:53]
15/09/2008 16:45
 
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Another graphic post-scriptum, this time, thanks to Lilli (Benedetto.fan) who went to Paris to follow the Pope (and I hope to Lourdes, too) and shot this on her way to the Invalides. The top of the Tour Eiffel may be seen in the background, left.



It's the kind of picture the news photo agencies don't do enough of, and it's some sort of disservice to the reader who expects a fair modicum of local color in the reporting. TV has been most inexplicably guilty of this oversight. Very rarely do they give the viewer a real sense of the local atmosphere in the places visited by the Pope (or in the US, by the President of the United States), when it should be SOP. In my time, we were always taught - whether in print or on radio and TV - to do 'situationers' that first places any event in its proper geographical (international, regional, national and local), cultural, political and social (including religious) context - to properly prepare the reader, listener or viewer for the event itself.





[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 15/09/2008 16:47]
15/09/2008 18:13
 
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POPE BENEDICT ENDS
VISIT TO FRANCE


LOURDES, Sept. 14 (AGI) - The Pope has left France after a four-day visit.

The papal flight took off from Tarbes-Lourdes airport for Rome's Ciampino airport, where it is expected to arrive around 3:15 p.m.

The Pope will return to the papal summer residence in Castel Gandolfo
.


Departure from Tarbes airport.

The Holy Father was seen off by the Prime Minister of France, Francois Fillon, who also attended the Papal mass in Paris on Friday.




Here is the English translation, finally, from the Vatican of the Holy Father's words at the departure ceremony in Tarbes today:




REMARKS OF THE HOLY FATHER
BEFORE LEAVING FRANCE
Tarbes-Lourdes Airport



Mr Prime Minister,
Dear Brother Cardinals and Bishops,
Civil and Political Authorities,
Ladies and Gentlemen!

As I depart – not without regret – from French soil, I am most grateful to you for coming to bid me farewell, thereby giving me the opportunity to say one last time how much this journey to your country has gladdened my heart.

Through you, Mr Prime Minister, I greet the President of the Republic and all the members of the Government, as well as the civil and military Authorities who have spared no effort to contribute to the smooth progress of these grace-filled days.

I hasten to express my sincere gratitude to my brothers in the episcopate, especially to Cardinal Vingt-Trois and Bishop Perrier, as well as to all the members and staff of the Bishops' Conference of France. It is good to be here among friends.

I also thank warmly the mayors and the municipalities of Paris and Lourdes. I remember too the members of law enforcement and all the countless volunteers who have offered their time and expertise. Everyone has worked devotedly and whole-heartedly for the successful outcome of my four days in your country. Thank you very much.

My journey has been like a diptych, the first panel of which was Paris, a city that I know fairly well and the scene for several important meetings.

I had the opportunity to celebrate Mass in the prestigious setting of the Esplanade des Invalides. There I met a vibrant people, proud of their firm faith; I came to encourage them to persevere courageously in living out the teaching of Christ and his Church.

I was also able to pray Vespers with the priests, men and women religious, and with the seminarians. I wanted to affirm them in their vocation in the service of God and neighbour.

I also spent an all too brief yet intense moment with the young people on the square in front of Notre Dame. Their enthusiasm and affection are most encouraging.

And how can I fail to recall here the prestigious encounter with the world of culture at the Institut de France and the Collège des Bernardins? As you know, I consider culture and its proponents to be the privileged vehicles of dialogue between faith and reason, between God and man.

The second panel of the diptych was an emblematic place which attracts and fascinates every believer. Lourdes is like a light in the darkness of our groping to reach God.

Mary opened there a gate towards a hereafter which challenges and charms us. Maria, porta caeli! I have set myself to learn from her during these three days.

The Pope was duty bound to come to Lourdes to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the apparitions. Before the Grotto of Massabielle, I prayed for all of you. I prayed for the Church. I prayed for France and for the world.

The two Eucharistic celebrations in Lourdes gave me an opportunity to join the faithful pilgrims. Having become one of their number, I completed all four stages of the Jubilee Way, visiting the parish church, the Cachot and the Grotto, and finally the Chapel of Hospitality.

I also prayed with and for the sick who come here to seek physical relief and spiritual hope. God does not forget them, and neither does the Church.

Like every faithful pilgrim, I wanted to take part in the torchlight procession and the Blessed Sacrament Procession. They carry aloft to God our prayers and our praise.

Lourdes is also the place where the Bishops of France meet regularly in order to pray and celebrate Mass together, to reflect and to exchange views on their mission as pastors. I wanted to share with them my conviction that the times are favourable for a return to God.

Mr Prime Minister, Brother Bishops and dear friends, may God bless France!

May harmony and human progress reign on her soil, and may the Church be the leaven in the dough that indicates with wisdom and without fear, according to her specific duty, who God is!

The time has come for me to leave you. Perhaps I shall return some day to your beautiful country? It is indeed my desire, but a desire I leave in the hands of God.

From Rome I shall remain close to you, and when I pray before the replica of the Lourdes Grotto which has been in the Vatican Gardens for a little over a century, I shall think of you.

May God bless you! Thank you.






What a poignant and loving farewell to France the Pope gave today! - a moving acknowledgment of what one might call his second spiritual homeland, after Bavaria, having grown up in the melange of German and French culture that was typical of the Europe of his youth.





The Holy Father concludes
apostolic visit to France



The English service of Vatican Radio failed to release the translation of the Pope's farewell address in its usual timely manner, but it posted this written wrap-up story of the papal visit (usually done with audio tapes):



15 Sept 08 (RV) - Pope Benedict XVI is resting at the papal retreat at Castel Gandolfo this evening after concluding his four-day apostolic journey to France.



Earlier in the day, the Holy Father celebrated a special Mass for the sick on the steps of the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary in Lourdes. Philippa Hitchen reports:


From tears to smiles. From suffering to solace. That was the essence of Pope Benedict’s homily at a very moving Mass for the sick in front of the Basilica in Lourdes on Monday morning.

Tens of thousands of pilgrims gathered with the Pope and other Church leaders from around the world for this last event of his four day pilgrimage to France, a visit which bishops here hope will reawaken a new sense of faith and encourage greater cooperation between religious and secular institutions.

After being welcomed by President Sarkozy and meeting with political, religious and cultural representatives in Paris on Friday, the Pope travelled down here to the Marian shrine at Lourdes where he walked the Jubilee Way marking the 150th anniversary of the apparitions of Our Lady to the young girl Bernadette Soubirous.

Visiting the parish church where she was baptised; the small, damp room where she lived with her family in poverty; the chapel where she made her first communion; and the rocky grotto where Our Lady appeared to her a total of 18 times, the Pope underlined the very contemporary message of this most popular place of pilgrimage: that God’s love is shown to us often through the weakest and most rejected members of society.

Far from the false idols of our consumer culture, the message of faith is shown through those who may be materially poor, sick, or suffering, yet who feel themselves richly blessed with spiritual gifts.

At first sight, this small town at the foot of the Pyrenees, with its flashing neon signs and rows of shops selling all sorts of kitsch souvenirs, seems an impossibly far cry from the spiritual message of Marian devotion.

Yet a short walk down to the river by the grotto, where crowds gather each day in prayer and the baths where those suffering all kinds of physical and mental illness come to wash in the waters of the nearby spring, reveals an entirely different face.

In some mysterious way, the quiet and prayerful atmosphere of this place helps many people to step back from the hectic pace of their daily lives and put problems into a different perspective.

In a very visible way, the disabilities and deformities of some of the sickest pilgrims, wrapped in blankets on stretchers or huddled in the distinctive blue wheelchairs pulled by volunteers, enable others to accept more easily their own forms of pain or anxiety.

From tears to smiles. From the tears of Mary, the distraught mother at the foot of the cross where her son was dying a tortured, humiliating death, to her beatific smile, revealed to Bernadette and so perfectly captured by medieval artists, as the Pope recalled in his homily on Monday.

Mary’s smile is that of a loving mother to her child, he said, but it is especially directed to those who suffer so that they can find solace therein.

When words no longer suffice – as was seen so poignantly in the face of the previous Pope who made his last earthly pilgrimage here in 2004 – that loving smile can offer some serenity and strength to face even the worst torments of pain, bereavement and death.

During Mass this morning, the Pope anointed a number of sick pilgrims, elderly men and women in wheelchairs and younger people who stood in line to receive the sacrament that Bernadette herself received four times during the course of her short and sickly life.

Finally Pope Benedict also had words of thanks and encouragement for all healthcare workers, doctors, nurses, carers and volunteers of all kinds who look after the sick and bring so many of them on pilgrimages here to Lourdes each year.

To them he said, "you are the arms of the servant Church".

And that is the other striking feature of this town – something that President Sarkozy described as ‘the miracle of compassion’ that is to be found in all the hospices, clinics and care homes that have grown up around the shrine.

Volunteers of all ages and every nationality making their own pilgrimages here in a spirit of service and sharing with others.

It’s a place which attracts and fascinates every believer – as the Pope noted before heading back to Rome on Monday – a place which charms but also challenges us in a profound way.

The Pope’s pilgrimage here was aimed at galvanising the Church here, to encourage Catholics to play a more positive and courageous role in this very secular society.

But his words and the message of this shrine at Lourdes is a call to each one of us to reassess the priorities of our lives, to be open to Our Lord’s voice – even in the most unexpected places and to give generously in the service of others.







Fr. Lombardi says the trip
accomplished all its goals

Translated from
the Italian service of






Sergio Centofanti interviewed Fr. Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican Press Office, for his assessment of the Pope's four-day visit to France.

FR. LOMBARDI: It was certainly very positive. It ranks with the other papal trips abroad this year, to the United States and Australia, in terms of a great welcome for the Pope, a reception that was very open, which allowed the Pope to deliver his message for the Church and for society.

The positive assessments we have already heard in France and elsewhere confirm that the trip has fully achieved its goals .


Can one say that in a way, France - at least as it appeared to many observers - has changed?
Certainly, on the question of secularity and positive secularity - which is somewhat the note on which this trip began with the Pope's meeting with president Sarkozy at the Elysee - some saw the way it has been discussed as something new, which speaks of a climate of calm, constructiveness and capacity for dialog, so that various institutions, of the State and of the Church, can work together for the common good of the citizenry.


Lourdes was the culminating stage of the trip...
Certainly, from the spiritual perspective, although in Paris, both the Vespers at Notre Dame and the Mass at the Invalides Esplanade had an impressive spiritual quality. It was a huge participation, and an attentive one, which gave the sense that even in the French capital, the Church is alive and witness to a faith that is genuine and profound.

Here in Lourdes, we are at a fountain of spirituality, for all Christians, with its particular Marian tenderness.

The Holy Father, in his interventions and homilies, delivered a catechesis on apparitions. I was very struck by how he emphasized the theme of light, which characterized Our Lady's apparitions in the grotto; the theme of 'building the church'. which Our Lady asked for in the course of the apparitions; the theme of the Christologic and theocentric orientation of the apparitions in which Mary prayed the Gloria Patri... with Bernadette.

And then, this morning, the theme of Mary's smile - that was very beautiful! Mary, who brings joy and peace even to those who suffer, to the lives of all who turn to the Lord in humility and with trust.

I think that the themes of Mary's smile and of hope were the almost natural culmination for this trip, which has shown the great treasure that the Church has to help man find the sense of life even in the most difficult situations.


What about the most important meeting with the bishops of France?
The Pope was able to meet the Church of France by meeting with all the bishops and giving them a message. He gave them a message that specified some orientations and did it in a very even manner.

But that is what one expects of the Pope as Universal Pastor, that he provides guidance and orientation. He spoke on the principal issues that concern the Church of France in today's society: the lack of vocations and priests, the problems of families, the ecumenical and inter-religious dialogs, dialog with society as a whole. And he did this all very calmly and constructively.

Those who speak of a Church in difficulty in France find that they have the Pope's confidence, and he has injected them with confidence that when one reconnects with the sources of Christian spirituality, the springs of faith, then one can face even the most difficult of situations and can look forward with a conviction that they can make a positive contribution.

Even the Pope's major discourse on culture at the College des Bernardins made it very clear that the topic of Christian roots, on which the Popes have always insisted, is not just a slogan but a topic with rich and precise contents.

The Pope showed quite well that starting from a search for God, starting from a religious life, so many dimensions of culture have developed - in literature, arts, music, Biblical interpretation, hard work and practical labor - all being absolutely fundamental aspects of European culture.

That is why the Church, the Christian faith, feels itself profoundly present in our culture and wants to continue being so in the future.


[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 16/09/2008 04:36]
15/09/2008 23:53
 
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La révélation Benoît XVI
(The revelation of Benedict XVI)

by Étienne de Montety
Editorial
Translated from






One can only smile re-reading the alarmist commentary that preceded Benedict XVI's visit last week: How good is this man? Is he someone our society can welcome?

The ovation accorded him by the young people at Notre Dame and by the colorful crowds at Invalides and in Lourdes should constitute an answer for all the birds of ill omen.

It reminds us of a passage from Francois Mauriac's Notes exactly 50 years ago about another Pope who had just been elected, John XXIII. The good souls of the time immediately wondered, "Will be a great Pope? Or just a 'transition' Pope?" - exactly what they said when Cardinal Ratzinger was elected.

Mauriac wrote that only one thing is required of a Pope: that he "simply says the words and simply carries out the actions for which he has been called".

Benedict XVI has said those words. And he has carried out those actions.

He evoked secularity with intelligence and a sense of proportion to the President of France. He delivered a brilliant lesson on history and theology to the intellectuals. In Paris as in Lourdes, he fulfilled his mission to "confirm his brothers in the faith".

And all of this without sound bites, without tricks up the sleeve, without a thought for 'communications strategy'. Watching him these past few days, one thought of Victor Hugo's words, "This strength which works..." ['Cette force qui va...']

On Sunday, the Pope addressed the French bishops at length. Fraternally, but firmly.

His benevolent words did not exclude some refocusing: on the need for a solid catechism, the importance of priestly and religious vocations.

He also stressed that charity is required to address liturgical disagreements, particularly with the traditionalists.

More important, he explicitly urged the episcopate to speak out freely (he repeats this deliberately). His argument is simple: strengthened by the message which is the Catholic Church's deposit of faith, Catholics must engage themselves in society and intervene in good times or bad, according to the formulation of St. Paul (a strong personality for whom Benedict XVI professes a 'special admiration') - in matters such as the defense of marriage and the family, the defense of the national identity and its 'own culture' threatened by "being absorbed into others or drowning in a pall of uniformity" - so many complex subjects which he enjoins them to confront without fear of going against the current.

Strong in his universal Magisterium and an independence of spirit which seems to characterize him, the Pope consistently took this line during his visit to France.

Now, he asks the bishops to measure their steps against his. Without fear of displeasing. The challenge is in order, even though some of them have already started the work in their own diocese.

Nevertheless, it would be hypocritical on the part of secularists, not to take part in the Pope's admonition.

The lesson in audacity from Benedict XVI is not addressed only to the clergy - that would be too simple. He addresses all men of good will, encouraging them to disseminate the Church's teaching about man in political, economic, scientific and cultural circles.

In the past, Robert Schuman, Jerome Lejeune, Maurice Clavell and Andre Frossard did. Who is there to do it today?





There's a very good companion piece to the editorial, 'How Benedict seduced the French', but meanwhile, here's one from the Italian media. Contrast the Figaro editorial with the often false premises of someone like Ignazio Ingrao, the Vatican correspondent for the Italian magazine Panorama, who has always had a touch of malice - or more - when writing about Pope Benedict, though even he can't deny that the Pope was a success in France.


The Pope conquers the heart of France
by Ignazio Ingrao
Translated from

Sept. 15, 2008



LOURDES - With his customary calm and kind manner, Benedict XVI has captured the attention of both the Church and the government of France.

In a brief visit with an almost Wojtylian rhythm, Ratzinger [how do these journalists get off, referring to a Pope by only his last name, without any honorific?] visited Paris and Lourdes from Sept. 12-15.

He gave three principal addresses: at the Elysee Palace, in front of President Nicolas Sarkozy, on the importance of a positive secularity which values the contributions of the Church to public life; at the College des Bernardins, before 700 French intellectuals, on the relationship between faith and reason as an antidote to fanaticism and fundamentalism; and in Lourdes, to the bishops of France, to call them to order on the Magisterium of the Church.

The common thread through these discourses was the Pope's strong evocation of the identity of the Church and the Christian faith, united with a call to value tradition, as the only guarantee for the future of Catholics. [That's putting the Pope's message secularly, of course!]

And against all expectation [Against all expectation? Only the skeptical and those who do not wish the Pope well had low expectations!], the success of Benedict XVI was exceptional, both with the public as well as with the media. [I bet, though, that if the public reception had not been so obviously warm, the media could easily have portrayed the visit as a 'failure', at least with French Catholics!]

In the visits of 1996, for the XV centenary of the Christianization of France, and in 1997 for World Youth Day, John Paul II had 'filled
the squares' (more than Benedict XVI) [There, you see, Ingrao can't resist taking a jab - but consider the occasions for those visits, and perhaps more important, the space that was made available for Mass and other public gatherings! The Esplanade des Invalides is not Le Bourget airfield, for instance.], but he was disputed and criticized by secular, rationalist France.

Ratzinger, instead, fascinated and aroused the curiosity of the French. Probably because of his CV as an intellectual and a 'maitre a penser' [master thinker].

But above all, what impressed was his clear message - his clear invocation and evocation of the identity of the Church. A message which drew people in - even young people - instead of alienating them. [Hey, after all, even sensible Muslims respect an adversary who stands up for his beliefs.]

He was also a surprise for the French bishops, traditionally advocates of a Church of dialog rather than a Church of identity. [Is that not a false dichotomy? Pope Benedict's stand - that of any reasonable person - is that dialog is not possible, or at least futile, unless one is carrying on a dialog with a sure sense of one's identity; otherwise, what do you stand for?]

For them, and perhaps, for the entire Church in Europe, it means a change in strategy. This seemed to be acknowledged by Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois who, at the end of the Pope's severe discourse [Severe? It was simply straight talk delivered in the most courteous way possible!], could not hide a certain measure of embarrassment, saying "The Pope is not an administrator visiting a subsidiary of his company to dictate guidelines for behavior. But certainly, we must all seek together the styles and modalities that are most appropriate for responding to the challenges today."

He was echoed by Mons. Claude Dagens, Bishop of Angouleme and a member of the French Academy, after the Pope's address to the world of culture: "Benedict XVI calls us back to the roots of Christian faith and Western thought. It is an invitation to start over, from the essentials". [Surely, this is not the first time an academician like Mons. Dagens has heard Benedict invoke these matters, in writing and in countless speeches! It's disingenuous to pretend they are hearing this only now!]

In short, if the Church in France, a model of dialog and openness [Really? They seem to have been open to everyone else, except to the Pope!], even in ethical issues, has been reduced to only 5% of its Catholics who practise the faith and a dramatic crisis in vocations, perhaps it is time to take a new road. [Yes, for a change, it should listen to the Pope and obey the Magisterium instead of disputing it to the point of open defiance and disobedience.]

The Pope wants a dialog with the world of culture, of politics and other religions, but in order to do that, he calls on Catholics to rediscover their own identity. Especially in view of the fear and uncertainty which has permeated Europe since September 11, 2001.

Meanwhile, Benedict XVI in France appeared much more open and relaxed in relating to people, more at ease with the crowds, and happy with the youth. [Hasn't he always been all this, except that media chose to see him otherwise? I never shared the platitude that even most Vaticanistas write, that the Pope's natural shyness means he is uneasy with crowds. What I see in his various public appearances - back to the photos and videos of him as Archbishop of Munich - is someone who responds joyously to the affection of people like any normal human being does: he enjoys it. As the Spanish saying goes, "Amor con amor se paga" - love is repaid with love.]

"He is learning to be Pope", the French media commented. [I'll have to look through the articles in Le Monde, Figaro, and La Croix to find anyone who said that in the past four days - or anything as condescending, for that matter! Ingrao forgets that it was Benedict XVI himself, in Les Combes three years ago, answering a newsman who asked him during an ambush interview how he was doing, who said, not without irony, that he was 'learning to be a Pope'!]

Indeed, it was during his trips to the United States and Australia that Ratzinger appeared more relaxed in his papal robes. [Again, a false because it is a conveniently subjective conclusion to suit the writer's ends!]

He has also been made to feel more secure by the team that surrounds him: Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, his Secretary of State; Mons. Guido Marini, his ceremonial master for liturgies; Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi; and papal trip coordinator Alberto Gasbarri. [They certainly help by doing their respective jobs competently and well, but I'm sure they would be the first to say that it is the Pope who gives them a sense of security, and not the other way around!]





By the way, Luigi Accattoli for Corriere della Sera, Andrea Tornielli for Il Giornale, and the good folks at Avvenire - have of course filed very positive reports about the trip, but these are the ones who have always been sympathetic - yet objective - to Benedict XVI. I will translate them, but I will do Figaro and la Croix first.

Here's the second piece from Le Figaro today:



How the Pope seduced France
BY Jean-Marie Guénois
Translated from

Sept. 15, 2008




The French knew little of John Paul II's successor. In Paris as in Lourdes, they discovered a man who defends his convictions with humility.

The greatest gesture of the Pope's trip was also the most humble. And it took place Monday morning in Lourdes.

[In the programming for the visit], Benedict XVI, the great intellectual, had wanted to prolong his stay in the Marian city by a few hours. Not to deliver yet another discourse but to bend down and caress some of the sick pilgrims. To deliver to them the Unction for the Sick, one of the seven sacraments of the Church. Also, one of the simplest, intended to strengthen those who are suffering.

Humility then was the trait that crowned this visit to France. A humility that was noted by everyone, for or against him, believer or not, much impressed by the Pontiff's demeanor.

They were disarmed by someone they had thought of as the Panzerkardinal, based on his caricature and label from the past. And his decisive weapon was precisely his humility.

To write that is not to flatter him but simply to remark on the first success of this tenth trip of Benedict XVI outside Italy.

The Pope did not use seduction but he was able to seduce a people, the believers as well as the indifferent. They looked at him befpre his visit, from afar, darkly. They will see him leave France today with respect, that's for sure.

Of course, the Pope has not reversed a trend [in the Church of France]. Sunday afternoon, Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois, introducing the Pope's meeting with the bishops of France, cited St. Paul: "Beset on all sides, we are not crushed; we have been struck down but not finished off". [My translation, as I do not have the chapter-and-verse citation to look up the official translation].

The situation is not desperate, but the Church of France feels within itself the painful changes brought on by time. Thus, the gentleness of this visit, proportionate in its moderation, to the present reality in the Christian communities.

He brought to Paris as in Lourdes a climate of peace, of calm, of profound joy - the best state of mind, in short, to face times of trial.

And that was the second lesson of this trip: to a Church that doubts, the Pope made no promises.

His only prophet-like quality was not in announcing anything but in simply 'being'. Sometimes motionless, carried away by an interior joy, as Saturday night at the end of the torchlight procession in Lourdes.

"To be"* is probably his most powerful charism.

*[in the sense of being himself]

{This writer just so gets it, Deo gratias!]

And let's say it: It was far from the triumphalism for which some often reproached John Paul II. After the conqueror, 'Benedict the peaceable' is reassuring.

Starting with that which legitimately brought disquiet upon the equilibria achieved by secularity in France. Without engaging in a political debate, the Pope demonstrated - and this is the third lesson of this trip - that the Church poses no danger to secularity.

The Pope picked up the challenge from the President of the Republic, proposing to give a content, a 'new way' for 'positive secularity'.

What he proposes is not to corner parts of the market for Catholics, but simply a request: "Placing into evidence the Christian roots of France will allow each of the inhabitants of this country to better understand where he comes from and where he is going."

In the context of secularity, which he accepts as fact, he asks more of Catholics than from the State - for them to reflect and revisit their roots in order to be able to contribute the wealth of the Christian humanist patrimony to the collective edifice of the nation.

He is also a peacemaker within the Church. The anticipated liturgical war did not take place. "He" is going to change the Mass. He will give Communion on the tongue to kneeling communicants. Three of the thousands of priests at the Invalides Mass wore the traditional chasuble of Barroux, the traditionalist monastery.

Indeed, the Pope touched on this sensitive subject in minor key. On the plane to Paris, he asked for 'an act of tolerance' from those who do not accept his decision, which came into force exactly one year ago, on Sept. 14, to allow as an 'extraordinary' rite the celebration of the traditional Mass in Latin according to the Missal of John XXIII. [Wow! I am impressed - one of the few journalists who stated this correctly!]

In his homily at the Invalides Mass, he suggested that "the greatest signs of honor" be given to him, who, according to the Catholic faith, is really present in the consecrated Host.

And in front of the Bishops on Sunday in Lourdes, he said: "Everyone has a place in the Church. Every person, without exception, should be able to feel at home, and never rejected."

It is a difficult road, certainly, he acknowledged explicitly to the bishops, but "satisfactory solutions" must be found so that "Christ's tunic may not be further torn apart".

Once again, more than with his words, it has been by example that Benedict XVI has sought to defuse the thorny question of liturgy - in trying, for example, to restore the sense of the sacred to those who have lost it.

Last but not least: the questions he posed to intellectuals and artists at the College des Bernardins on Friday afternoon.

It was a daring proposition: The Pope showed that the freedom of debate and interpretation in the philosophy of the Enlightenment owed a direct debt to the nameless monks of the Middle Ages.

His argument: In systematically debating the texts of Scriptures and
by applying a monastic rule where 'the work' of transforming the world was a sacred duty: they created a culture - the basis for European culture - that was the foundation of humanism and a bulwark against fanaticism.

It pays to be daring! And many appreciated his points, even if the text - one that requires to be read all over - may initially not be accessible to everyone.

And finally, a constant element on this trip, the effect of which will require years to assess, was his appeals to the youth, his appeal for vocations in the very heart of what one may now call 'the Benedict XVI generation'. [I have news for Mr. Guenois. Youth of many nations in Cologne immediately called themselves the "Benedict Generation' back in 2005.]

It is a generation very much like the Pope we have seen in the past three days: not politics above all, not even the Church above all, much less the "Catho' appearance, mode or style, but a true belonging. An active, silent and very interior belonging to Christ.


That such an editorial and such a commentary can appear in Le Figaro - bastion of French secularism (yes, the -ism itself, not just the -ity) in this year of God and the third millennnium after Christ, is a phenomenon in itself. But it is striking proof of Benedict's insistence that the Christian faith must and can be defended with reason, because, after all, as Prof. Marion of the Sorbonne memorably said the other day, "Reason is one of the names of God".


[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 16/09/2008 21:43]
16/09/2008 08:26
 
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The surprises from Benedict XVI
Isabelle de GAULMYN in Lourdes
Translated from

Sept. 15, 2008




"Politics is not religion, and religion is not politics".

The voice is gentle, the tone is conversational. He surprised the French, at least those who, their heads filled with prefabricated images, expected a Pope cocksure of his certainties, ready to elbow out anyone who does not think like him.

Starting with his inflight news conference enroute to Paris, TV instead showed a smiling, open Pope, who is aware of the politico-institutional subtleties of French secularism, expressing himself most pleasantly.

In France, Benedict XVI had an invaluable ace up his sleeve: his perfect mastery of the French language, which allowed him to project, without the filter of interpreters, his own particular serenity of expression.

No, he explained on the flight, secularity is not the opposite of faith. It is, in fact, one of the fruits of faith.

A few hours later, at the Elysee presidential palace, he would express his satisfaction about a 'calm and positive dialog' [on secularity] which has been gradually shaping up.

In the meantime, he expressed concern for the difficulties of French society - for marginalized youth, often left to themselves or to 'religious communitarianism'. A Pope concerned about our suburbs - is this the 'tyrant father' he was made out to be?

The charm of his kindness and the Pope's amiability caught attention and took hold. Benedict XVI surprises people, he inspires their interest. With his disconcerting ability to be always where one does not expect him to be.

One had thought that under the sumptuous vaults of the Bernardins, the Pope, facing the world of culture, would unfold a grand panorama of the challenges of the modern world.

The entire 'Gotha' [nobility, as in 'Almanach de Gotha', Europe's reference book on the continent's true bluebloods] of French culture willingly came and awaited what Benedict XVI had to say with mouth-licking anticipation.

But he chose instead to give them a long exposition on "the origins of Western theology and the roots of European culture".

In the manner of tne ancient 'lectio', he used the occasion to peel back the veil on the treasure of culture that had been fashioned by monasticism, which had founded the European ethos: a culture of the Word, which would never be fundamentalist, being elaborated within a rationality that avoided any such reduction to 'fundamentals', thanks to Christian universality that accords every man the right to his own idea of truth.

It was a lengthy presentation, but necessary, in his view, to show how "the present absence of God is silently besieged by the question concerning him".

In other words, the future of Christianity will be played on the field of culture. The Pope's discourse, complex and academic, may have disconcerted some, but it seduced the French who, as an Italian newspaper put it, consider intellectuals celebrities like rock stars.

Others also expected Father Morality in the Pope. But at the Invalides Mass, the pedagogue that Benedict is chose to speak of the faith, with that clarity which, according to one Catholic, "makes his listener more intelligent".

As for those who were apprehensive about a Papacy weighed down by ancient etiquette, they found in him, beyond classic liturgy, a Successor to Peter with a disarming humility. [How refreshing it must have been for them to encounter an intellectual who is humble!]

In Lourdes, the Pope became a pilgrim among other pilgrims, renewing his baptismal vows at the small parish church that was Bernadette's.

In the Cachot, he showed real emotion at the hovel where fate had led the Soubirous family to take refuge for lack of money - a former prison cell that became home for a family that had 'neither knowledge nor power' ['ni savoir ni pouvoir'].

Among the sick pilgrims, he found the words to evoke with tact the suffering that "can upset life’s most stable equilibrium and can shake the firmest foundations of confidence".

The Pope has therefore surprised the French people. But not to anyone who has followed the Pope's travels abroad. In Sydney last July, and in the United States last April, Benedict XVI had equally amazed and seduced, by the refinement of his discourse and his great humility.

So far, one dares to say, the Pope's trips have been very 'well run', with a formula adapted to his personality - from the inflight news encounters to his meetings with young people. And Benedict XVI has managed to detach himself from the crushing shadow of his predecessor. [That putative 'shadow' was only in the imagination of those who under-estimated Joseph Ratzinger - and the depth of talent in the Church hierarchy that has made it possible in our time to have a succession of great Popes - each in his own way.]

The great novelty of this trip to France was perhaps that if the Pope surprised the French, then France, too, surprised the Pope.

After the Mass at Invalides, one thing moved him very profoundly: to find the young priests of the dioceses of Paris rush towards him with great spontaneity and emotion.

He, too, had some ideas about the Church in France, and doubtless, he was not expecting such a sign of affection from a clergy reputed to be rebellious and difficult.

Since Nicolas Sarkozy's address at the Lateran, the Pope knew he would be well-received at the Elysee. but the welcome which the French gave him on the streets of Paris and by the French Catholics at the Mass, was unexpected.

The enthusiasm of the faithful, who were joyous and apparently free of any complexes, was striking - 250,000 in Paris, and almost as many in Lourdes. And all this had started not as a spontaneous 'Benedict effect' but because the dioceses in Paris and in the provinces had mobilized the faithful for the Masses. {Well, whoever agreed to be 'mobilized' also had to be willing and wanting to take part. And while the initial motivation may not necessarily have been the 'Benedict effect', it would certainly have been the 'Pope effect' which, I maintain, from my own small-town Catholic formation of considering the Pope as truly Christ's Vicar on earth - St. Catherine's 'sweet Christ on earth' - is bred into the bone of everyone who was born in the faith.]

The youth among this public were a surprise to the Pope, who, in leaving France, observed how much "the enthusiasm and the affection" of the young people had reassured him. And their fervor, as well.

Nowhere, in the previous trips of the Pope - except for the WYDs - had one seen the silence and meditation that was evident at the appropriate moments during the Masses.

Even the College des Bernardins contributed to convey a new image of the Church in France: This Pope, who is so sensitive to culture, was not indifferent to the magnificent restoration work that had just been completed there, and for the plans the diocesan has for it.

The intuition of the late Cardinal Lustiger, who had wanted to make the presence of the Church more visible in a society that had been effectively secularized to the limit, has proven to be prophetic. The Pope confided to the bishops of Paris how he was happily surprised by this dynamism.

Will all this change how Benedict XVI looks at the Church of France? The address he made to the bishops of France on Sunday afternoon in Lourdes - although it was very encouraging - still contained reservations and perhaps even, some of the distrust that has made relations between France and Rome 'sticky', such as the Pope's plea for 'a pacification of spirits' which he expected to follow his decision last year to normalize the position of the traditional Mass
in the Church.

One can wager that if Benedict XVI comes back to 'this beautiful country', as he said Monday that he wanted to, the tone will be completely different.

After all, the Pope's pastoral visits serve not only to make the Pope better known to Catholics, but also to make the Pope more aware of the diversities within his Church.

And already, in his homily at the Mass on Moday, he added to his prepared text by remarking about his solidarity with the bishops of France.


[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 16/09/2008 13:46]
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