Pope Benedict XVI has returned to his summer residence at Castel Gandolfo for a few days of relaxation, after a 4-day visit to Great Britain that his spokesman characterized as “an extraordinary success.”

In England, loyal Catholics were sorry to see the Pope leave, but elated by his visit and energized by his message. A headline in the Catholic Herald captured the mood nicely: “The Pope has routed his enemies and brought joy to the faithful.”

In the short report appearing under that headline, William Oddie said that the Pope’s personality had overcome the skepticism that had been fueled by protests prior to his arrival: “What came over consistently was the huge warmth, the seemingly inexhaustible loving kindness of the Pope’s gentle but nevertheless powerful personality. After all the caricatures, the man emerged.” Ross Douthat of the New York Times agreed that the papal visit “must have been a disappointment to his legions of detractors.” After weeks of publicity, the protesters disappeared into the crowds. Douthat referred to them as “a sideshow to the visit, rather than the main event.” A few reporters, less generously, described the Pope’s performance as a “charm offensive” and even revived the tired old language about “God’s Rottweiler” to describe the public image of Pope Benedict—an image that the same media outlets had helped to create. More perceptive journalists observed that while he had invariably been polite in his argument and winning in his presentation, the Holy Father had delivered a very challenging message to British society, staking the claims of the Catholic faith without apology.

In the building where St. Thomas More was sentenced to death, the Pope proposed that saint as a model for Church-state relations. Speaking to Anglican prelates, he suggested that Blessed John Henry Newman, a convert to Catholicism, is an ideal model for ecumenical progress. To one of the world’s most thoroughly secularized societies, the Pope brought the message that modern man is thirsting for God. If the Pontiff charmed the public, it was not because he soft-pedaled his message.

Raymond Arroyo of EWTN argued that the most under-reported story of the papal visit was the outreach to Anglicans, particularly under the terms of Anglicanorum Coetibus. The Pope’s offer to Anglicans, he said, was “a chance for Anglicans to return to the faith of their fathers before the Reformation and to protect themselves from an insidious secularism that is plaguing society at large and their communion in particular.” In Canada’s National Post, Father Raymond de Souza observed that the Pope “had succeeded in getting people to consider the central question he thinks Newman would ask today's Britain: What is the foundation of our common life if not our Christian heritage?”

Pope Benedict XVI (R) is seen next to his personal secretary, father Gaenswein George, as they arrive at the Ciampino airport in Rome September 19, 2010.

NEXT STOP - SPAIN!

ZE10030801 - 2010-03-08
Permalink: http://www.zenit.org/article-28570?l=english

Aide Explains Pope's Surprise Plan to Visit Spain

Says Pontiff Aims to Further Dialogue With Artists

VATICAN CITY, MARCH 8, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI's unexpected acceptance of invitations to visit Barcelona and Santiago de Compostela in Spain this year reveals something about his goals, the Vatican spokesman said.

Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican press office, stated this Sunday on the latest edition of Octava Dies.

The Holy See recently announced these additions to the Papal agenda, which was somewhat unexpected and "last minute," given the preparation entailed in such events, the spokesman explained.

He noted that this trip to Spain, which will take place in November, highlights two "fascinating" goals that the Pope has decided to highlight: furthering the dialogue between art and faith and underlining the Christian roots of Europe.

Father Lombardi stated that it will leave an important mark on this pontificate.

"We thought the agenda of the Pope's international trips for 2010 was defined with the usual number of four and, all of a sudden, with a surprising decision, Benedict XVI has accepted two other invitations to Spain," the priest said.

He continued: "The number of trips, in addition to Malta, Portugal, Cyprus and Great Britain, thus increases to five: the Mediterranean and the Middle East, the Iberian Peninsula and northern Europe.

"They are not enormous distances, but very different environments. We will have the opportunity to listen, to participate and to learn."

Pilgrimage

Speaking about the upcoming trip to Barcelona for the consecration of the Sagrada Familia Church on Nov. 7, the spokesman affirmed that this building's "original synthesis of art and faith born from Gaudi's genius will give the Pope a precious occasion to continue the discourse of dialogue with art, proposed intensely by him in the recent meeting with artists in the Sistine Chapel."

He noted that the archbishop of that city, Cardinal Lluís Martínez Sistach, stated that the church is "of artistic, biblical, theological, spiritual and catechetical significance, unique in the world."

"Santiago de Compostela," Father Lombardi continued, "goal of the journey of pilgrims that for centuries have arrived there from so many countries and different directions, is a place where it is demonstrated that the subject of Europe's Christian roots is not an abstract theory.

Rather, he said, this pilgrimage site, which the Holy Father plans to visit Nov. 6, manifests "the concrete experience of all kinds of people, of the most diverse origins, who converge moved by a common spirituality."

The spokesman concluded that these in these two visits in Spain, "Pope Benedict XVI continues his pilgrimage, to speak of God to every man of our time willing to seek his face."

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