A most touching tribute by a journalist and author of books on demographics, globalization, the environment, and bioethics. It's the closest way he can get to declaring that Benedict XVI is a saint, without saying so directly, as we all have felt who love him and have followed him these eight years - so short, and yet so rich in unforgettable moments...
The 100,000 who came
to see the Pope on Sunday
by Riccardo Cascioli
Translated from
February 18, 2013
I, too, was there with my family in St. Peter's Square on Sunday for the Angelus with Pope Benedict XVI, the first after the historic announcement and the next to the last before his Pontificate ends.
We travelled 1,200 kilometers to pray for a few minutes with the Pope and see him 'live' for the last time at the 'Angelus window'. The wonder was that we met so many friends who had obeyed the same impulse, along with tens of thousands other faithful who had done the same thing. From near and far, we were all at St. Peter's Square.
At least 100,000 drawn there by an invisible power, without getting orders or suggestions from anyone. A spontaneous impulse of the heart that came well ahead of the mind trying to give it reason.
So why were we there in St. Peter's? It would have sufficed, after al, to watch the Angelus on TV with greater attention, and with a clearer, better view. But we could not resist the desire of being there.
Why? What were we looking for in St. Peter's Square? What did we wish to affirm by being there?
First of all, a very simple thing: Immense gratitude for and to this Pope who has been able to introduce (or re-introduce) us very simply into companionship with Christ.
One thing that has always been striking about Joseph Ratzinger is his absolute 'familiarity' with God, his ability to make even the most complicated mysteries of Christian faith present, palpable, concrete and almost visible for others. He can speak to me of the Trinity, and describe Father, Son and Holy Spirit as if they are next to me 'in flesh and blood'.
Benedict XVI has made it easier for us to decide to pursue the Christian life, and to make holiness greatly desirable. How can we not be thankful for that?
The more so now, when with his greatest sacrifice, he has made it clear to us that it is truly Christ who leads the Church, not men, forcing us to ask ourselves anew, what do we truly believe?
Someone has said, rightly, that
we no longer need the encyclical on faith that he was working on - after his encyclicals on love and hope - because he has written it with his life.
Gratitude as well to the Church that she may continue to generate models of holiness, even at a time when the sins of her own members seem to threaten to sweep away everything that matters about the faith.
Reading the newspapers these days, one can easily fall into unease and cynicism, at all the stories of divisions, intrigues, power plays, etc., that apparently dominate the Roman Curia, or so we are made to understand.
Not everything is true, of course. Much of it is self=serving for whoever is writing, usually with hatred for the Church.
[Ah, but the worst blows come from those whom one had always thought to be firm in the faith (and their loyalty to Benedict XVI) enough not to be taken in by the media mentality and the public opinion that they have shaped - but are turning out to be just as cynical and critical, if not more, of Benedict XVI's gesture than the professional secular 'priest-haters'.]
Benedict XVI himself has repeatedly pointed to the wounds that disfigure the face of the Church, which he has not refused to acknowledge.
But at St. Peter's Square this Sunday came the most eloquent response to all this gossip, all these allegations of behind-the-scenes knowledge and conspiracy theories:
The People of God can recognize saints, they can recognize who is worth following.
The odor of sanctity is unmistakable and imposes itself over and above the stink of any filth that may surround it.
The odor of sanctity is unmistakeable, and it attracts – it also makes us question ourselves about our own 'con-version', our re-orientation towards God, as the Pope said in his reflections,
And this was the second reason for being at St. Peter’s Square: A pilgrimage to pray that our hearts be truly opened “to rediscover the faith as the fundamental criterion for our life”, to seek support for the ‘spiritual combat’ that by ourselves alone we cannot win.
The enormous dimensions of the Piazza and the adjoining Basilica would seem to have been designed to remind us of our smallness, of our true size. And to realize that our greatness can only lie in belonging to Christ.
A hundred thousand on Sunday, perhaps many more on Wednesday, February 27, for Benedict XVI's last general audience. To bear witness that the Church – like the world – needs saints above all.
To pray that the 117 Fathers called to elect a new Pope will have their hearts permeable to the will of the Holy Spirit which cannot be concretized without their individual ‘Yes’ to him. Just as the will of God cannot be realized in our own life unless we say Yes.