GERMANY: Pope deeply moved by return to native Bavaria

Pope Benedict made a triumphant return on Saturday (September 9) to Munich, where he served as archbishop for five years, and told the cheering crowds he was deeply moved to come back to his Bavarian homeland. The 79-year-old Pope, who has hinted this might be his last visit home, waved and smiled as he drove into the centre of town in his white "papamobile" along streets lined with crowds brandishing Vatican and Bavarian flags. "It is very moving for me to be back in this beautiful square, at the foot of the column of the Virgin Mary," he said at Marienplatz, the main square of the Bavarian capital that was packed with crowds including many in traditional folk dress. He smiled and nodded in agreement when Bavarian Premier Edmund Stoiber announced: "Our German Pope has come back to his Bavarian homeland!" In an emotional address at Munich airport, the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger said: "Inside of me, so many memories of my years in Munich and Regensburg are coming back, memories of people and events that left deep traces in me." During his six-day trip, Benedict will mainly visit Munich, his diocese from 1977 to 1982, and Regensburg, where he taught theology from 1969 to 1977. He will also stop at his birthplace Marktl am Inn and a shrine to the Virgin Mary at Altoetting. The visit is focused completely on his beloved Bavaria, a traditionally Catholic region with a rustic character and culture that sets it apart from the rest of Germany. Asked on the plane from Rome if he would visit Berlin some day, he said he would like to but added: "I am an old man and I don't know how much more time the Lord will give me." After a short speech in the city centre, Benedict prayed at the column of the Virgin Mary, built in 1638 in thanksgiving that Munich was spared destruction during the Thirty Years War. Smiling broadly, he then walked around to chat with several politicians he knew from his time in the city. The Pope has said he also wants his visit to help revive Christian belief in Germany, which is about equally split between Catholics and Protestants but has seen a dramatic drop in religious observance in recent decades. Asked about the wide-reaching secularisation seen in Germany, as in other European countries, he said there was "fatigue everywhere" but added: "German Catholicism is not as tired as some people think." Greeting him at the airport, German President Horst Koehler, a Protestant, urged the Pope to do more to foster ecumenical cooperation -- a pressing issue here for the many mixed Catholic-Protestant couples. Benedict has made working for Christian unity a priority, but Germany's Protestants have complained that he has ignored them and only reached out to the Orthodox churches. Benedict XVI later went to the Residence, home of the Wittelsbach dynasty that ruled Bavaria from 1180 to 1918, for talks with Koehler, Stoiber and Chancellor Angela Merkel. After meeting with the Holy Father, Chancellor Merkel said: "I have expressed my belief that faced with so many who are no longer connected to Christian belief it is of great importance to find ways of ecumenism without losing sight of the differences. I am under the impression that the Holy Father is very open minded about the subject." About 250,000 people were expected to gather at a fairground east of Munich on Sunday for an open-air mass with Benedict.

ITN Source | September 11, 2006

Tags:. .tired. .smiling. .smiled. .sight. .joseph