The year that was with Benedict XVI
Translated from
the Italian service of
December 31, 2009
The trip to the Holy Land and the earlier one to Africa, the Synodal assembly for the Church of that continent, the proclamation of the Year for Priests and the publication of his third encyclical,
Caritas in veritate - the first of a social nature - were the major events that characterized 2009 for Benedict XVI.
On the last day of the year, Alessandro De Carolis looks back on 2009 with the words of the Pope:
As at every start of the year, Benedict XVI addresses the whole world through his homily for the Mass of January 1, Solemnity of the Most Holy Mother of God, on which the Church also observes a World Day for Peace.
Benedict XVI's chosen theme for the 42nd World Day for Peace was "Fight poverty and build the peace". He would echo these words in his address to the Vatican diplomatic corps one week later.
"To build the peace, we must give hope to the poor", the Pope told then, noting, among other things, the economic crisis which a few months earlier had involved the entire planet.
"To make the economy healthy, it is necessary to build new trust. This can be realized only through an ethic that is based on the dignity that is innate in the human person. I know how demanding this is, but it is not a utopia".
On January 24, the Holy See published a decree whereby the Pope revoked the ecommunication of four bishops who had been ordained without pontifical mandate in 1988 by the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, founder of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X (FSSPX).
For a few weeks, media attention focused on this Church milestone - though it is transitory, along the road to full communion with Rome for the Lefebvrians - because of statements questioning the historical reality of the Holocaust made in the past by one of the four bishops, Mons. Richard Williamson, which provoked a wave of indignation.
At the General Audience of Jan. 28, recalling "the blind racial and religious hatred " which ;ed to the deaths of millions of Jews, Benedict XVI reiterated forcefully:
"Let the Shoah be a warning for everyone against forgetting, against negation and reductionism, because violence against one single human being is a violence against all... Let the Shoah teach both old and new generations that only the laborious way of listening and dialog, of love and forgiveness, can lead peoples, cultures and religions of the world to the desired goal of brotherhood and peace in truth. Nevermore should violence debase human dignity!"
Nonetheless, the wave of criticisms and protests ended up distorting the meaning of the Pope's action. It was with great regret that the Pope, on March 12, wrote a letter to all the bishops of the world to clarify the decree that revoked the excommunications.
Very frankly, the Pope admitted errors in communication but noted that the 'gesture of holding out a hand' ended up causing 'a great outcry' even in some Church circles, where unfortunately, that 'biting and devouring' denounced by St. Paul persists 'as a sign of a poorly understood freedom".
On March 17, the Pope travelled to Africa for the first time to visit Cameroon and Angola. The occasion was to turn over to the bishops of thr continent the
Instrumentum laboris (working agenda) for the October Synodal assembly on Africa in the Vatican.
But for Benedict XVI, it was also the opportunity to speak from his paternal heart to the heart of a continent that he has always kept in mind...
"Africa suffers disproportionately: a growing number of her inhabitants end up prey to hunger, poverty, disease. They cry out for reconciliation, justice and peace".
A week before he left for Africa, Benedict XVI visited Mayor Gianni Alemanno of Rome who had invited the Bishop of Rome to come to the seat of the Commune of Rome on the historic Campidoglio (Capitoline Hill).
The Pope called on Rome to "recover its most profound soul" - the Christian - in order to be 'the promoter of a new humanism", and before returning to the Vatican, he prayed before the remains of St. Francesca Romana, in the monastery named after her in Tor de' Specchi.
On February 11, the Pope began a new cycle of catecheses in his general audiences. After 20 catecheses dedicated to the Apostle Paul, the Pope turned his attention to the great Christian writers of the Middle Ages.
In the following weeks, Saints Cyril and Methodius, St. Bernard Clairvaux and the major monastic and scholastic theologians lived again - with attention to historical fact and made relevant to the faithful today - in the portraits which the Pope offered to the thousands of faithful who gather at the Vatican every Wednesday to listen to him.
On APril 26, before a massive crowd in St. Peter's Square, Benedict XVI presided at the first of the two canonization ceremonies of 2009.
There were five new saints: the parish priest and workers' advocate Arcangelo Tadini; the medieval monk Bernardo Tolomei; Portuguese general and national hero Nuno de Santa Maria Alvares Pereira, who in the 15th century laid down his sword for the cloister; and two founders of religious institutions, Gertrude Comensoli and Caterina Volpicelli.
Five more new saints were canonized on October 11: The apostle of the lepers, Damiaan Veuster of Belgium; the Polish bishop Sigismund Felinski; the Spanish priest Francisco Coll Guitart and his compatriot, Cistercian monk Rafael Arnaiz Baron; and the French nun Jeanne Marie (Jugan) of the Cross, founder of the Little Sisters of the Poor.
May was the month of a much-awaited papal pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Benedict XVI arrived in Jordan on May 8, and was in Israel from May 11-15.
he called it "a pilgrimage to visit the Holy Places" where Christ walked teh earth, and the various stages of his trip were characterized by a spiritual intensity evoked by the sites where the Christian faith was born.
The Pope also underscored the importance of dialog between Jews and Muslims, invoked peace between Israelis and Palestinians, spoke to commemorate the Holocaust, and against the hostility brought about by walls between people - convictions and hopes that he synthesized in his departure speech at Tel Aviv airport:
"No more bloodshed! No more fighting! No more terrorism! No more war! Instead, let us break the vicious cycle of violence. May there be lasting peace based on justice. May there be reconciliation and healing."
As he had first announced in March, Benedict XVI inaugurated the Year for Priests on June 18 with a letter to all priests, in which he held up the Curate of Ars, St. Jean Marie Vianney, as a model for every priest. The day after, at a solemn inaugural Mass in St. Peter's, the Pope said:
"Our mission as priests is indispensable for the Church and for the world, requiring full fidelity to Christ and incessant union with him. Remaining in his love demands that we strive constantly for holiness as did St. Jean Marie Vianney".
On June 21, the world witnessed Benedict XVI in prayer before the remains of St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina in San Giovanni Rotondo - one of the Pope's four pastoral visits within Italy for 2009.
Earlier, on May 24, the Pope knelt at the tomb of St. Benedict during his visit to the Abbey of Montecassino and the town of Cassino.
On September 6, the Pope visited Viterbo, where he venerated the remains of Santa Rosa, native daughter and patron saint of 'the city of the Popes', and in the afternoon, he paid homage to St. Bonaventure in his hometown of Bagnoregio.
Finally, on November 8, a visit to Brescia and Concesio in homage to Paul VI 30 years after his death.
On June 28, at the closing ceremony of the Year for St. Paul in the Basilica of St. Paul outside the Walls, the Pope announced 'with profound emotion' the result of a preliminary scientific investigation using a probe inserted into the sarcophagus of St. Paul, which has remained sealed for 20 centuries.
He said the examination showed 'tiny bone fragments' and cloth samples that "appear to confirm the unanimous and uncontested tradition that it contains the moral remains of the Apostle Paul".
The month of July opened with the much awaited publication on July 7 of Benedict XVI's third encyclical,
Caritas in veritate. The ample social Magisterium that characterizes it - 18 years after Papa Wojtyla's
Centesimus annus - immediately drew worldwide attention.
The following day, at the General Audience, the Pope explained that he had looked at the main questions that are of concern to contemporary society - from poverty to the economic crisis to protection of the environment - and remarked:
"That is why it is necessary to undertake a profound moral and cultural renewal responsible discernment of the choices that must be made for the common good. A better future for everyone is possible if it is founded on the rediscovery of fundamental ethical values".
Three days later, on July 10, many of those same topics - from the defense of life to peace in the Middle East, from the economic crisis to inter-religious dialog - were taken up between Benedict XVI and the new American president, Barcak Obama, in a 40-minute private meeting.
The first black American Preisdent had come to Italy to take part in the G8 summit hosted by Italy and held in L'Aquila among the ruins of the Holy Week earthquake that had claimed more than 200 lives and caused vast destruction.
The Pope himself visited the region on April 29 to bring comfort and solidarity to the thousands of displaced persons and other victims of Italy's worst earthquake in 40 years.
Benedict XVI spent July 13-29 in Les Combes of Introd, in Italy's Val d'Aosta, for his annual summer holiday. On July 17, a stumble in the dark resulted in a fracture to his right wrist. He was treated in a hospital in Aosta, and his arm and hand were placed in a cast that was taken out one month later.
Before leaving Les Combes for Castel Gandolfo, the Pope recalled with gratitude the sympathy shown to him by everyone, and commented on the incident this way:
"Unfortunately my guardian angel did not prevent my little accident, surely on 'higher orders'... Perhaps the Lord wanted to teach me to have more patience and humility, and give me more time for prayer and meditation".
On October 4, cardinals, bishops and laymen gathered at the Vatican - 240 Synodal fathers and dozens of lay auditors - for three weeks of deliebrations in the second special Synodal assembly dedicated to Africa.
The meetings, on the theme "The Church in Africa in the service of reconciliation, justice and peace", were intense, and the relations and testimonials, often very moving, gave a concrete face to the continent at the start of the 21st century.
In his homily at the inaugural Mass, Benedict XVI said:
"With her work of evangelization and human promotion, the Church can certainly give a great contribution to all of society in Africa, which unfortunately experiences poverty, injustice, violence and wars in many countries".
The month of November saw the Holy See involved in a historic dialog with the Anglican community. On November 9 came the publication of the Apostolic Constitution
Anglicanorum coetibus laying down the terms for personal ordinariates for Anglicans wishing to enter into full communion with Rome.
The document is intended to "open a new road for the promotion of Christian unity, while recognizing the legitimate differences in the expression of our common faith". This new stage was sealed by the visit to the Pope on November 21 of the Archbishop of CAnterbury, primate of the Anglican Communion.
Some of the social issues dealt with in
Caritas in veritate and in many other papal texts during the year were reflected again in the address given by Benedict XVI at the Rome headquarters of the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, at a world summit on food security. The Pope said:
"Hunger is the most cruel and concrete sign of poverty. One cannot continue to accept opulence and waste when the tragedy of hunger takes on increasingly greater dimensions".
An event that had great media impact took place on November 21 at the Sistine Chapel, when Benedict XVI met with more than 200 artists from various disciplines. It took place 10 years after John Paul II's Letter to Artists, and 45 years since Paul VI met the world of art at the Sistine Chapel.
Benedict XVI spoke of a renewed friendship between the Church and artists, whom he called on to be "proclaimers and witnesses to hope for mankind".
"Faith takes nothing away from your genius or your art. On the contrary, it exalts and nourishes, and encourages them to cross the threshold and to contemplate with fascination and emotion the ultimnate and definitive goal, teh sun that does not set, the sun that illumines the present and makes it beautiful".
On November 28, Benedict XVI commemorated at the Vatican the 25h anniversary of a peace treaty between Argentina and Chile, which had been concluded with the direct interest of John Paul II who helped resolve a territorial dispute without resort to arms.
In the presence of delegations from both countries, Benedict XVI called the signing of the treaty "a luminous example of the power of the human spirit and of the desire for peace against barbarism and the irrationality of violence and war as means to resolve differences".
Two audiences of great international importance took place at the Vatican in early December. On the third of the month, Benedict XVI received Russian president Dmitri Medvedev, which would lead a few days later to the establishment of full diplomatic relations between the Holy See and the Russian Federation.
The second was the visit on December 11 of the Vietnamese President Nugyen Minh Triet, who became the first Vietnamese head of state to be received by a Pope.
On December 4, Benedict XVI was honored at a concert in the Sistine Chapel (by the Chamber Orchestra of Munich and vocal soloists) offered by President Horst Koehler of Germany to mark the 60th anniversary of the Federal Republic of Germany and the 20th anniversary of teh fall of the Berlin Wall.
"The history of Europe in the 20th century," noted the Pope, "demonstrates that responsibility before God is of decisive important for correct political action" in order "to generate new energies in the service of an integral humanism".
Words that reflect Benedict XVI's confidence as he looks towards the future of the planet. The confidence is anchored in God and in his intervention in history, as the Pope repeated in his Christmas mesage
urbi et orbi:
"Even today," he said, "for the human family so profoundly marked by a grave economic crisis that is above all, a moral crisis, and by the painfoul wounds of wars and conflicts", the Church draws its strength form the presence of Jesus in the world, and "like Mary", is fearless because:
"...that Baby is her strength. But she does not hold him for herself: she offers him to all those who seek with a sincere heart, to the humble of the earth and to the afflicted, to the victims of violence, to those who yearn for the blessings of peace... In the spirit of sharing and of faithfulness to man, the Church repeats with the shepherds, "Let us go to Bethlehem" - and there we will find hope.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 31/12/2009 20:23]