00 16/08/2009 20:22




Still bringing this thread up to date.





Posted on 7/19/09 in the BENEDICT thread:


ANGELUS TODAY











Here is a translation of the Holy Father's words before the Angelus prayer today in Romano Canavese. For a change, as though to acknowledge his almost purely Italian audience in this little town of 3,000 people 40 miles north of Turin, he said no words in other languages:


Dear brothers and sisters:

I have come with great joy to your beautiful city, with its beautiful church, to the hometown of my principal collaborator, Cardinal Tarcisio, Bertone, Secretary of State, with whom I had already worked for years at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

As you see, because of my misfortune, I am somewhat limited in my movement, but the presence of my heart is full, and I am among you with great joy!

I wish at this time to say 'Thank you' with all my heart to all: So many have shown during these days aheir closeness, their sympathy and their affection for me, and have prayed for me - thus reinforcing the network of prayer which unites us in all parts of the world.

Above all, I wish to thank the doctors and hospital staff in Aosta who treated me with such diligence, such competence and friendship, and as you seem with success - we hope!

I also wish to thank the authorities of the state, the Church, and all the regular folk who have written me or have shown their affection and closeness.

Now I wish to greet, first of all, your Bishop, Mons. Arrigo Meglio, and thank him for his kind words full of friendship - and also for telling me a bit about the historical and present situation of your town.

I wish to thank Mons. Luigi Bozzo for his presence. I greet the mayor who presented me with a beautiful gift, and the civilian and military authorities.

I greet the parish priest, the other priests and religious, the members of church associations and ecclesial movements, and all the citizens - with a special thought for the children, young people, families, the aged, the sick and the needy.

To each and everyon, my most sincere thanks for the welcome which you have prepared for me during this brief stay among you.

This morning, you celebrated the Eucharist with Cardinal Bertone, who must have illustrated to you the Word of God that the liturgy offers for our meditation on this 16th Sunday in ordinary time,

As the Lord invited his disciples to come aside with him away from the others in order to listen to him in intimacy, so I would like to speak to you, knowing that listening to the Gospel and accepting it has given life to your community whose name recalls the bimillenary links of the Canavese with Rome.

Your land was bathed early, as His Excellency recalled, with the blood of martyrs, among them St. Solutor - I must confess that until this time, I had not heard of him, but I am always thankful to learn of new intercessor saints - for whom, along with St. Peter the Apostle, your church is named.

An eloquent testimony to your long history of faith is this imposing parish church which dominates a large part of Canavese territory, whose people are well-known for their love of work and attachment to work.

At present, however, I know that even here, in the area of Ivrea, many families are experiencing economic difficulties due t4o the lack of work opportunities.

About this problem, as His Excellency has also pointed out - I have spoken many times, and I have dealt with it more profoundly in the recent encyclical Caritas in veritate. I hope it may be able to mobilize positive forces to renew the world!

Dear friends, do not be discouraged! Providence always helps those who do good and work for justice. It helps those who do not think only of themselves, but also of those who are worse off than they are,

You know it well, because your grandparents were forced to emigrate for lack of work, but then economic development brought well-being, and people came here from other parts of Italy and even from abroad. [During the postwar boom years for Olivetti Industries, based in Ivrea, but forced to retrench drastically, closing down its world-famous typewriter business with the advent of the PC.]

The fundamental values of family and respect for human life, sensitivity to social justice, ability to face effort and sacrifice, the strong links with tje Christian faith through parish life, and especially, through participation in Holy Mass, have been your true strength through the centuries.

These very same valies will allow the generations of today to build their own future with hope, giving life to a society that is truly solid and brotherly, in which all the various sectors, institutions, and the economy are permeated with the evangelical spirit.

In a special way, I address the youth, about whom we must think terms of their educational prospects. Here, as everywhere, you must ask what kind of culture you are getting, which examples and models are offered to you, and evaluate if these are such that can encourage you to follow the ways of the Gospel and of authentic freedom.

Youth is full of resources, but it must be helped to overcome the temptation of easy and illusory ways, in order to find the way to a true and full life.

Dear brothers and sisters, on this your land, rich with Christian traditions and human values, many male and female vocations have flowered, particularly for the Salesian family, as it did for Cardinal Bertone, who was born in your parish, baptized in this church, and grew up in a family where he assimilated genuine faith.

Your diocese owes much to the sons and daughter of Don Bosco, for their widespread and fruitful presence in the whole area since the years when the Holy Founder wast still alive. [Don Bosco lived and worked in nearby Turin.]

May this be further encouragement for your diocesan community to be even more involved in education and vocational training [the emphasis of Don Bosco's apostolate, mainly directed at young people].

For this, let us invoke the protection of Mary, the Virgin of the Assumption who is the patron of your diocese, Help of Christians, the mother loved and venerated in a special way in many shrines dedicated to her between the mountains of Gran Paradiso [adjoining Les Combes] and the Po River valley.

May her maternal presence show to all the way of hope, and may she lead you as the Star led the Holy Magi. May Our Lady of the Star watch over all of you from the hill that overlooks Ivrea, Monte Stella, which is dedicated to her and to the Three Kings.

Now, let us entrust ourselves with filial confidence to Our Lady, invoking her with the prayers of the Angelus.









Last photo shows the Pope in an improvised Popemobile en route to the family home of Cardinal Bertone for lunch after today's Angelus.



Day 7 on vacation:
Pope blesses with his right hand,
cast and all - and shares
a relaxed lunch with
Cardinal Bertone's family

by Elisa Pinna




ROMANO CANAVESE, Piedmont, Italy, July 19 (Translated from ANSA) - Papa Ratzinger used his right hand - the one in a cast for a fractured wrist - to impart blessings on his first public event after the incident.

He was in great form, raising the injured arm easily; he moved the fingers of his right hand in his trademark way, almost like playing a piano; and he had the Fisherman's Ring, symbol of his papacy, back on his right ring finger. (He had to transfer it to the left hand for the operation on his wrist.)

The crowd at Romano Canavese, this little town in the Piedmont countryside, where Cardinal tarcisio Bertone was born, applauded him with great enthusiasm.

"As you see, I am somewhat limited in my (arm) movement, but the presence of my heart is full," he had said before the Angelus prayers.

[The story then briefly goes over the highlights of the Pope's Angelus message - translated in full above.]

Next to the Pope, CArdinal Bertone was beaming. The Pope had not cancelled his Sunday commitment despite his domestic accident, and after acknowledgin the sea of faithful crowded in Piazza Ruggia in front of the parish church, the Pope joined Bertone and his family at lunch in the family home in nearby Piazza Sarti.

Speaking to newsmen after the Pope had flown back to Les Combes in the helicopter that had brought him to Romano Canavese two hours earllier, Bertone jested that "he could not possibly give a blessing with his left hand, otherwise he might have had liturgical and theological problems!"

[Canon 168 on episcopal ceremonial provides that blessing are given with the right hand, which belongs to the 'noble part' of the body. There are exceptions: in the Old Testament, Job blessed his sons with the left, and in recent times, John Paul II used his left hand for a few weeks when he dislocated his right shoulder after a stumble and fall in 1993.)

Bertone noted, as everyone did, that the Pope was "in top form, very sure of himself, joyful - in public and in private".

In his Angelus message, the Pope spoke of the employment crisis in the area, which had followed the retrenchment of Ivrea-based Olivetti in the mid-1990s, a crisis that continues.

They also spoke about it over lunch later, the cardinal said, adding that there were 'good prospects for a new start for Olivetti". He recalled that even Pius XII used the standard Olivetti-22 typewriter to type out his texts.

At the Bertone family home, the Pope sat down to lunch with some twenty people, including the adult Bertones with the cardinal's younger siblings Valeriano and Mariuccia, and the Pope's own staff (secretary, chief of security, physician) and the Bishop of Ivrea.

The menu was simple: Parma ham with melon as antipasto; a risotto with Genoese pesto; maccheroncini ina tomato-basaed sauce; veal medallions with spinach and potato pancakes; and orange sorbet. The Pope drank his usual orange juice; the rest drank local wines, including an Erbaluce brand produced by the cardinal's brother.

The Pope ate with his left hand. Bertone observed that Benedict XVI is now learning to do more things with his left hand and finds it a useful exercise.

Bertone revealed that the Pope had received the latest-generation Olivetti notebook computer, from Telecom Italia's administrator Franco Bernabe, and the president of Olivetti, Francisco Forlenza.

Someone had suggested that it could be installed with voice recognition software that takes dictation, thus helping the Pope to resume his work on JESUS OF NAZARETH, volume 2, as he had planned to do. [That's a brilliant idea I hadn't thought of, though we use it in the office to facilitate the doctors dictating their notes on the spot - it's simple and uncomplicated. Could be a blessing in disguise if our Papino becomes computer-friendly because of this!]

"Well, let's see if we can deal with the new technology," Bertone commented.

Before leaving the Bertone home, the Pope had pictures taken with the Bertone clan, numbering around 50, including in-laws, nephews and nieces, and grandchildren.

The family also showed the Pope a plaque which they will append to the house wall, reading "The members of the Bertone family and their relatives remember with profound gratitude the Holy Father Benedict XVI who came to visit us in our paternal home".


NB: I saw video in the Fox News report this morning that showed the Pope greeting the faithful inside the church of Saints Peter and Solutor after he prayed briefly at the altar. He was supposed to have driven in a motorcade through the main streets of the town to get to the Church, but I have not seen any photos or references to that event. In the video, he goes down the central aisle of the church greeting the faithful and then emerges into the stage set up on the church steps, from where he addressed the crowd and led the Angelus.





AP's earlier report:

Pope seems at ease with cast
in blessing faithful

By COLLEEN BARRY



ROMANO CANAVESE, Italy, July 19 (AP) – A beaming Pope Benedict XVI raised his cast-encased right arm to bless thousands of faithful Sunday during his first public appearance since surgery to set a wrist fractured in a fall.

The 82-year-old Pope showed great agility two days after the accident. He held out his left hand for the faithful to kiss and to greet well-wishers, but raised his immobilized right arm to bless the crowd in this small Piemontese town's main square. He made the sign of the cross with ease.





"As you can see because of my accident, my mobility is a bit limited," Benedict told some 2,000 gathered in the main square at the start of his blessing. "But the presence of my heart is full."

He also thanked the doctors and medical staff at the Aosta hospital, where his wrist was reset on Friday, for their "diligence, competence and friendship," and also expressed thanks for all the prayers offered for his recovery.

Stepping out into the sunlight from beneath the canopy shading the outdoor altar, Benedict acknowledged the throngs in the square while another 5,000 or so followed on large screens set up in two other piazzas.

In his traditional Sunday blessing, the Pope addressed the issue of growing unemployment in the region, which is dependent on both the automotive and telecommunications industries that have suffered in the global economic downturn.

"Dear friends, don't be discouraged," the Pope urged. "Providence always helps those who work for the good and who occupy themselves with justice, helps those who don't think only of themselves, but of those who are worse off."

Andrea Accattino, vice mayor of the town of nearly 3,000, said the pope's visit was an important morale-booster for the community, which now has a jobless rate above 10 percent.

"Our hearts skipped a beat on Friday when they said he had fallen, but we didn't stop the planning machine," said Accattino. "The Pope was smiling even if he was suffering a little from his wrist. He had a smile for everyone."

The Pope underwent a 20-minute surgery on Friday after falling in a mountain chalet to reset the wrist he fractured in a fall, the first major medical issue of his 4-year papacy.

Doctors said the Pope will have to wear the cast for a month, and that he should fully recover.

The Pope's spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said the Pontiff was eager to keep his commitments despite the accident, which doctors said was not related to any medical condition.

"The Holy Father's condition is good," Lombardi told AP Television News on Sunday. "He needs to learn to live with an immobile wrist, meaning that some activities, in particular writing which is very important for him, will be limited. He's a very patient person and surely he will experience this small test with serenity."

He said well-wishes for the Pope had poured in from around the globe in calls, letters and e-mails.

Benedict was returning to his mountain retreat in Les Combes, in the neighboring region of Val d'Aosta near the French border.

Benedict has spent two summers in a secluded chalet in the village of Les Combes since becoming Pope. During his vacation, the Pope said he expected to rest and work on the second volume of his book on Jesus of Nazareth — although the prospects for writing have been curtailed by his injury. The right-handed Pope prefers to write by hand.