BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

One can count reliably on Jose Luis Restan for an original approach:


A time of trial,
a time of grace
by José Luis Restán
Translated from

April 22, 2010


Eighty three years old. And five as Pope. A colleague murmured to me, with what sounded like sincere commiseration: "Poor Pope!" And I answered, "Why poor?"

A reader of Avvenire wrote the editor saying that for her, Benedict XVI has been these days like 'a living Gospel'.

"I thought I would be supporting him with a letter like this, but I realize that it is he, with his words and his actions, who helps us live day by day".

In her, the people have spoken, the good People of God. He truly helps us to live - and is not that the function of Peter?

Benedict XVI's short visit to Malta offers us a singular parable of his Pontificate. There had been fear of street demonstrations, and it had been announced that organized groups were coming in from various European capitals to demonstrate against him during the visit. But the volcanic ash from Iceland left them all grounded. Poetic justice!

And the ancient and beautiful island that has waged so many battles to defend Christianity opened its heart to our 'dear Christ on earth'.

What a paradox that the identity of this small nation was born in a shipwreck - that of Paul of Tarsus enroute to Rome where he was to preach some more and then die for the faith.

The Pope used the metaphor well: "The shipwrecks of life are part of God's plan for us and they can be useful for new beginnings in our lives".

The world was watching this trip very closely, hanging on every word - and every silence. From the BBC to the New York Times, from La Republica to Der Spiegel, and all those who assassinated his character with arrant hypocrisy in the past few weeks.

But he does not think of them, nor does he bother fending off their blows. He thinks only of his people, such as those who welcomed him on the wide esplanade of Floriana or on the beautiful waterfront of La Valletta's port.

He lives for his flock, he loves them and suffers for them. And to the Maltese, he spoke of the Church that they have always known as a safe haven and hearth of life.

"I know Malta loves Christ, and loves his Church which is his Body, and Malta knows that if this body is wounded by our sins, the Lord nonetheless loves his Church, and his Gospel is the true force that purifies and heals".

Days earlier, in Rome, he spoke indirectly of the mediatic storm, calling it a grace - because it opens us to penitence. With the Pope leading ahead, taking up the burden of so much filth that, as always, accompanies the arduous journey of this Body of Christ.

In Rabat, he faced sight victims of sexual abuse by priests - he listened to them one by one, looked them in the eye, wept with emotion and outrage. And he spoke to them, prayed with them, and blessed each one with his hand on their head in a gesture that the apostles might have done. Afterwards, one of them would say that he felt liberated of a great burden and that he once again felt he was a son of the Church.

Later, the Pope came by boat to the meeting with 15,000 young people, who awaited him with their questions and confusions of everyday. he listened to their representatives with his profound and welcoming look, full of peace.

Then he spoke to them of the unimaginable profundity and intensity of God's love for each of us. A love which can be felt in an encounter with Christ, capable of dissolving the hatred and anger that can inhabit the human heart, as it had done with the impetuous Saul of Tarsus, who had been a persecutor of Christians.

God rejects no one, the Holy Father reminded them, and the Church rejects no one, but invites everyone with great love to change and be purified.

Benedict does not gloss over the fact that they will always find opposition to the announcement of the Gospel in the world - the same opposition that he spoke about a few days earllier when he spoke about the dictatorships that had cruelly persecuted Christians in the 20th century, but also of that subtle form of dictatorship today which consists in obligatory conformism, the obligation to think and do as everyone thinks and does.

He said then that obedience to God is the foundation of human freedom, and now he called on the young people not to be afraid to live the joy of having met Christ and to follow him within the great family of the Church.

Returning to Rome, the Pope had lunch with the cardinals on the fifth anniversary of his Pontificate. He speaks to them about a time of tribulation for the Church but without melodrama. He assures them he does not feel alone, and recalled his favorite teacher Augustine of Hippo who had described the Church's pilgrimage on earth "between the persecutions of the world and the consolations of God".

He demonstrates once more his freedom and simplicity, speaking openly of a Church that is wounded by the sins of her children, and surprises yet again by adding that it is precisely at a moment of apparent weakness that the comfort of God can be experienced more strongly.

These days, the figure of Benedict XVI reminds me specially of Paul VI at the end of the 1970s, the predecessor Benedict honored when he visited Paul's native city of Brescia last November.

In his homily at the Mass in Piazza Paolo VI, he recalled that in the midst of the tremendous torment that seemed to be a martyrdom for Papa Montini, Paul VI said he was aware many wanted him to make a dramatic gesture or forceful statements but "the Pope does not consider he should follow any other line than that of trust in Jesus Christ, whose concern for his Church is greater than for anyone else. It will be he who rides out the storm.... This expectation is neither sterile nor inert; rather, it is attentive watching in prayer... and the Pope, too, needs the help of prayer."

These words that Benedict XVI quoted from an address Paul VI gave to a group of seminarians also illuminate the fifth anniversary of his Pontificate.

The great French intellectual Alain Besançon compared both historic moments in the two Pontificates in a commentary he wrote for L'Osservatore Romano, observing that the glory of such Pontificates is not visible (i.e., not sensational) because it is the glory of martyrdom.

I sympathize with Besançon's intuition, but I do not know if I can share it fully: martyrdom is a glory characterized by pain and suffering, but the glory is evident to those who have their eyes open, like the reader of Avvenire whom I cited at the beginning.




The following is one of the best tributes written for the Holy Father's anniversary - unpretentious but very direct, and very emotional:

Benedict XVI: 5 years of
resisting the wolves
By Elizabeth Lev


ROME, APRIL 22, 2010 (Zenit.org).- This April is a month of anniversaries. April 21 recalls the birthday of Rome with pageants and free entrances to museums, but this year the most celebrated reoccurrence is that of the fifth year since the election of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger to the papal throne as Pope Benedict XVI on April 19, 2005.

While most of the world chose to remember the Pope in prayer, the New York Times, among many other secular news outlets, greeted this half decade-mark by listing the controversies (all media generated) of his pontificate -- some stretching their indictment of this papacy to besmirch even the pontificate of Pope John Paul II.

As prescient as he is wise, Pope Benedict predicted all this five years ago, during his inaugural homily when he asked the world to "Pray for me, that I may not flee for fear of the wolves. Let us pray for one another, that the Lord will carry us and that we will learn to carry one another" (April 24, 2005).

The wolves were not long in coming. Their first sally arrived the day after his election when the U.K. Guardian paid 'homage' to the new sovereign head of the Roman Catholic Church with the headline "From Hitler Youth to the Vatican." Among the many who leapt to clarify the Pope's wartime record was the New York Times, penning a careful and balanced piece in defense of the Pope.

A year later, the tides (or the Times) had turned. In June 2006, Pope Benedict was criticized during his visit to Auschwitz for not apologizing on behalf of the Germans and Catholics for the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis.

The New York Times led the charge this time critiquing "While he spoke eloquently about 'forgiveness and reconciliation,' he did not beg pardon for the sins of Germans or of the Roman Catholic Church during World War II."

From that day forth Pope Benedict could do no right with the secular media.

Three months later, after Pope Benedict's address at Regensburg, where he quoted a 14th century text regarding faith and reason among Muslims and Christians, the New York Times pronounced its sentence in the editorial, "The Pope’s Words." Their verdict? "He needs to offer a deep and persuasive apology."

In the intervening years, Pope Benedict has come under fire for condemning the use of condoms to fight AIDS in Africa, for not looking sad enough at Yad Vashem, and for refusing to deny the heroic virtues of Pope Pius XII.

The secular media, presenting itself as the voice of moral high ground, has demanded apology after apology from the head of the Catholic Church.

In 2010, the U.K. Guardian and the New York Times have joined forces; while one wrongly links the Pope’s name with sex abuse on the front pages, the other calls for his arrest.

As more and more apologies are demanded by the secular media, it becomes apparent that the only acceptable apology is for the Church to deny its moral teachings and its witness to Jesus Christ -- in short, its very existence.

As the wolves howl in this bleak forest of poisonous ink, it seems like a time to be afraid.

But indeed on this fifth anniversary, Pope Benedict has truly earned the name given him by the Wall Street Journal after his Regensburg address, "Benedict the Brave." In a world increasingly marked by religious intolerance, he has rallied his flock to the words "God is Love."

The first Pope to meet with victims of clerical sex abuse, he has confronted the ugliest stain on the Church by witnessing the damage done to its victims firsthand.

He has forayed into concentration camps, mosques and synagogues, knowing that only a few will respond to his call for healing and dialogue. He has gone to the heart of secular Europe to bring the unpopular message of the Gospel.

If John Paul II exhorted us to "be not afraid," Pope Benedict has lit the path laid by his predecessor for the rest of us.

The Italian bishops gave the Pope a special gift this year, a day of prayer in all the parishes of Italy. Along with many others the world over, we prayed for the long reign and continued courage of our Holy Father.