LORENZAGO: THE AFTERMATH
THE POPE'S VACATION, LORENZAGO DI CADORE, JULY 9-27
Now that the Cadore holiday has ended, I will be posting any lingering news from it in this thread.
Corriere delle Alpi, the regional newspaper whose reporter Francesco del Mas, provided us a daily chronicle of the Holy Father's vacation in Lorenzago - a resource not available to us during his vacations in Les Combes - has put together a special in its Sunday issue today, UN RICORDO BENEDETTO.
UN RICORDO BENEDETTO is a play on the name, of course, as it can mean both "A souvenir of Benedict" or "A blessed souvenir".
[I choose to translate 'ricordo' as 'souvenir' because remembrance,
remembering, or memory have other connotations, whereas
the word 'ricordo' is neutral, without nuances, in Italian.]
I am very sorry now I did not go directly to Corriere delle Alpi online during the Pope's vacation to have been able to caputre their daily front pages and to access their photo galleries.
Happily, these are still available - there are about 10 'collections' ranging from 5-50 photographs each, taken by the newsphoto agency Obiettivo, much of them we have not seen - which you can access on the first two pages of this site
corrierealpi.repubblica.it/multimedia/home/1032795/1
I hope they stay online long enough for us to take our pick.
Here is the first of the two main articles in today's 'special'. Both of them are positive, but they both start from the premise that the people of the Cadore had an entirely negative image of Benedict XVI before he arrived there!
A different Ratzinger
By FRANCESCO DAL MAS
Where was the 'German shepherd'? "Where was 'the Pope with eyes of ice'?
That was how was described when he arrived in Treviso, before flying on to Lorenzago.
[Who did, and why on earth? We read the story, saw pictures and video, that he stayed 20 minutes to greet the military families at the Treviso airbase even if it was not on the schedule!]
Where was the 'gravedigger of the Council', 'the crusader against Islam'?
[But where did all these epithets come from? I'm only familiar with 'German shepherd! I think they show the depth of the prejudice that Del Mas himself and other media in the area had about the Pope.]
Benedict XVI's vacation in the Cadore showed a different Pope - at least to those who only knew him by the familiar labels.
Lorenzago saw a Pope who looks you in the eye as he holds out his hand to greet you. They are eyes that place you at ease, that do not judge, with a look that makes you feel he is addressing only you personally, and that he hears you.
He asks how are you, where do you come from, what do you do - before you can even master your emotions at the surprise of the moment. And almost always, the emotions end in tears.
Benedict XVI has left his mark on the Cadore. More profound, in certain ways, than did Papa Wojtyla (who was here six times between 1987 and 1998).
The Polish Pope from the Tatra mountains disappeared into the mountain trails even in rain and snow. He left every morning at 9 and did not get back till 7 p.m. (usually to waiting crowds that resembled those waiting to watch the Tour of Italy cyclists pass by).
John Paul II presumably spent hours in meditative solitude. Very rarely did he meet up with excursionists or village folk - though when he did, these encounters were, of course, intense.
Ratzinger - who has admitted that in his younger days, he loved mountain walks - stayed home most of the time in Lorenzago - to write, read, study, play the piano, meditate. But promptly at 6 p.m., almost every day he went out for a brief drive and walk.
He prayed the rosary, he stopped at little churches or roadside shrines, and had at least 3-4 casual encounters with local folk or tourists during each walk. That's a lot, considering that the walks never took more than half an hour. All these, through country lanes passing through areas of flat woodlands.
The Pope allowed Lino Fontanive to throw an affectionate arm around his shoulders as he asked him about his mountain cottage, his garden, his life, telling him "It's a Paradise here."
He walked along chatting with Carla, around whose shoulder
he threw an arm as they walked. He had two nuns - sisters to each other - throw themselves around his neck to kiss him. He asked a boy wearing an Inter shirt if he was a football player.
From a villager in Danta whom he asked why there seemed to be no flies around, he got back a question, "Are there flies where you come from, then?"
To everyone he met, he wished them "Have a good walk" or "Have a good vacation" before they could wish it for him themselves.
At the end of one his first walkabouts, he sat down at a park bench and watched a few minutes of tennis and pingpong.
To the photographers who complained they had not had an opportunity to photograph him exclusively, he gave them a chance at the bridge over the lake in Domegge.
One may well object that style does not necessarily mean substance. And yet, through the 'style' he showed, the 'hard' Ratzinger has now passed into the popular imagination as 'lovable', 'sensitive', 'tender', 'affectionate', 'paternal'.
Even 'light, in the sense of being bearable'
['leggero, nel senso del sostenibile' - there is no other way) to translate it, and it sounds awfully condescending, if not insulting, though it obviously wasn't meant to be, and the rest of the quotation is equally odd], 'for his respectful approach to the environment' - according to the mayor of Lozzo.
And as for substance: At the Angelus, the Pope appealed for conservation of 'creation', Nature, what God has created. Recalling the First World War and Benedict XV's futile pleas to end the 'useless slaughter', he spoke forcefully against war and violence, and for respect of international law.
To the 450 diocesan priests of Belluno and Treviso, he said Christians should make themselves 'neighbors' to everyone, including Muslims. He said evolution and creation were not mutually exclusive. He said priests should not be 'sacred bureaucrats'. And he reaffirmed fidelity to the teachings of Vatican-II .
To Catholics who have separated, divorced or remarried after divorce, he assured them that the Church continues to be close to them, with loving support, even if they cannot fully participate in the sacraments.
"A different Ratzinger," said many at they end of the Pope's sojourn in the Cadore.
No. More likely, the real Ratzinger. The warm welcome of the Cadore, which he himself said had 'stunned' and 'almost intimidated' him, simply revealed who he is.
Corriere delle Alpi, 29 luglio 2007
All very well, Mr. Del Mas. But where were all of you in the past two years? Is it possible none of you ever watched the Pope on TV, saw his pictures, read stories about him, that you could all have kept the negative stereotypes propagated by media during Joseph Ratzinger's more than two decades as CDF Prefect?
Or is this a ritual way to take back the prejudices you and your fellow journalists may have persisted in keeping about him - feigning that everybody was somehow the victim of a news blackout that kept them unaware of the Pope the world has known for over two years now, until he came to the Cadore and they could see for themselves?
Whatever, we can only be thankful you have all seen the light now. All's well that ends well, and we are indeed thankful to you for your conscientious daily reporting despite the paucity of data you had to work with. It is much more than anyone did for Benedict's two summers in Les Combes.
===================================================================
Here's the second story - and it's more of the same, although it extrapolates the 'Ratzinger effect' to a sea change in the self-confidence of a region that has been through an economic crisis.
The Pope brings confidence
By TONI SIRENA
The front-page photo yesterday in this newspaper was very beautiful, even quite moving. It summarized well the general sense of the three weeks that Pope Benedict XVI spent in the Cadore.
The photo showed the white helicopter taking off, and in the foreground, a group of mothers and children waving goodbye.
.[I hope we shall be able to find this picture.]
A very good symbol. Modern technology and a tradition of spirituality that goes far into the past. The 'lightness' of the flight that was taking the Pope 'elsewhere', and the gravity that weighs down people in their daily lives. Their hope in the prayers of someone who can pray for them himself. Confidence recovered in themselves and in the potential of this land and this community.
[
And here come the sterotypes]:
No one had imagined, before Benedict XVI arrived here, that this Pope would succeed in awakening such affection and emotion. In the collective imagination, this was an icy Pope, a German shepherd, frigid and remote, the Curial symbol of theological sophism, guardian of good morals and right conduct. A remote Pope coming from a remote world.
[Dear ones, Bavaria is just across the Dolomites from you!]
Instead, we found a Pope who was intimate and gentle, who has simple feelings just like the simple folk, and not just the believers.
Flaminio Da Deppo, president of the 'mountain community' of the Cadore [22 towns], said in behalf of all the mayors, that the Pope's visit had brought an infusion of self-confidence to the Cadore.
It is not a convenient commonplace. It comes after years of analyzing the changes that have been taking place in the Cadore towns, where social and economic problems have caused thousands of inhabitants to move away to places with 'better opportunities'.
A study by the University of Venice, conducted from 2004-2006, showed a shift from a vertical structure that had been dominated by the single regional industry of manufacturing eyeglasses, to a horizontal levelling caused by the loss of that industry into an as-yet indistinct replacement by local artisanship, agriculture and tourism as the basis for a new development and regional identity.
All this, acccording to Da Deppo, also matched with a striving for 'quality work' - including art restoration of the region's cultural treasures and conservation of a unique environment.
But the anthropological consequences have been serious - the economic crisis made the local folk doubt whether they could take their destiny back in their own hands - and Da Deppo says that the Pope's brief sojourn has infused new confidence in a way that is "palpable and very obvious".
Pope Benedict XVI, he said, had given the local people a new awareness and pride in their land. On many occasions, the Pope praised the exceptional quality of these mountains, woods and valleys, the uniqueness of the Dolomite landscapes, the great value of this part of 'creation', as part of the divine design.
He said these in simple, almost timid words, to the people he met, in their language, and with great hope - and this generated unexpected sympathy for him, in the literal sense of 'feeling together.'
For the inhabitants of these mountain towns, not just for the believers among them, the words of the Pope carry an authoritative sense of hope.
They needed someone to speak to them about values, because they had long lost hope that politicians could give them answers, and this Pope, just by being himself and probably not even aware of the significance of his simple words and gestures, communicated to them through this very simplicity, and in his words, they have found self-validation and new confidence.
Corriere delle Alpi, 29 luglio 2007
====================================================================
I can only say how stunned I am at the persistence of all the wrong stereotypes about Pope Benedict XVI.
In the past two years, I thought: In this age of global technology, how could one doubt the power of images, and thank God, through that at least, the world can see the real essence of this holy man, as a man of God and a man of love and joy, a simple man even if he is one of the great thinkers of our time!
But if the Cadore is a template, then obviously media has continued to succeed in showing only the Joseph Ratzinger of their creation. The overwhelming majority of people do not watch entire telecasts of a Papal event. They get to see the soundbites and videoclips that editors decide to show them.
So we can only conclude that just as the newspapers - even in Italy - have mostly been unkind and unfair in their presentation of the Pope and what he does (reflected in the slant to their stories and in their choice of pictures to use, if at all), Italian TV has been equally capricious and negative, by omission and commission.
What is so clear to us - who follow the coverage of Benedict closely - is mostly not seen at all by the general public.
But then, he comes to Lorenzago for the first time, and what does an apparently far from Ratzinger-admiring reporter like Franceso del Mas conclude?
Benedict XVI has left his mark on the Cadore. More profound, in certain ways, than did Papa Wojtyla (who was here six times between 1987 and 1998).
Despite themselves, the media someteimes have no choice but to respect objective fact. And although Del Mas's statement many simply be his own personal impression and not the consensus of all Cadorans, it says a lot that he even made the conclusion.
It's a process of attrition, trying to get rid of all the wrong and unpleasant commonplaces about Joseph Ratzinger. But there is attrition, and hopefully, sooner rather than later, all these fallacies will crumble away.
BENEDICTUS QUI VENIT IN NOMINE DOMINI!