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Pope Benedict Evokes Difficult Moments in Final General Audience
Pope Benedict Evokes Difficult Moments in Final General Audience
(about 2 hours later)
VATICAN CITY — In the waning hours of his troubled papacy, Pope Benedict XVI held his final general audience in St. Peter’s Square on Wednesday, telling tens of thousands of believers in an unusually personal public farewell that in his nearly eight years in office he had known “moments of joy and light but also moments that were not easy” when “the Lord seemed to be sleeping.”
VATICAN CITY — He circumnavigated St. Peter’s Square in the popemobile for the last time. He gave his final waves to cheering masses. And most profoundly, Pope Benedict XVI bestowed his valedictory words to the world in a heartfelt, sometimes wistful address that highlighted the price of being a pope — and its rays of happiness.
The audience came a day before Benedict’s resignation takes formal effect and was one of the last public appearances scheduled before he begins what Vatican officials have depicted as a cloistered life of prayer and meditation.
His eight-year papacy held moments of “joy and light,” at times resembling the boat carrying Peter and the Apostles on the Sea of Galilee, enjoying many days of sun, gentle breezes and abundant fish, Benedict told tens of thousands of people during his general audience, which was moved to a sun-soaked St. Peter’s Square from the usual auditorium to accommodate the crowd.
In his homily, the pope cited the biblical voyage of Jesus and the apostles on the Sea of Galilee, saying God had given him “so many days of sun and light breezes, when the fishing was abundant. But there were times when the waters were choppy and there were headwinds, as throughout the history of the church, and it looked as if the Lord was sleeping. But I have always known that the Lord was in that boat, that the boat was not mine or ours, but was his and he will not let it founder.”
“There were also moments in which the waters were agitated and the wind contrary,” he said. “The Lord seemed to be sleeping.”
His reference was to a scriptural passage in which Jesus falls asleep in a boat with his disciples on a stormy sea.
Benedict, 85, resigns on Thursday, exiting the papacy at 8 p.m. In the morning, he meets the cardinals who will elect his successor sometime next month. At 5 p.m. a helicopter will fly him to his summer residence of Castel Gandolfo, where he is expected to wave to well-wishers and utter a few words. By 8:01 p.m., he will have the title “pope emeritus.”
Explaining his decision to resign — he is the first pope to withdraw voluntarily in six centuries — he said that in recent months “I felt that my powers were diminished. And I asked the Lord insistently, in prayer, to illuminate me with his light to make me take the right decision not for my good but for the good of the church.”
Church officials said 150,000 people had gathered in St. Peter’s Square on Wednesday. They waved flags, applauded and chanted “Benedetto” under a brilliant blue sky, as the pope, clad in a white, double-breasted overcoat, spoke to them mainly in Italian but also gave brief remarks in other languages. The popemobile halted several times so its occupant could kiss babies handed up to him.
He added: “To love the church also means having the courage to take difficult decisions, bearing always in mind the good of the church and not of oneself.” His words were frequently interrupted by applause.
In the most personal part of his speech, Benedict drove home a central truth for any world-renowned figure, much less a pontiff: privacy does not exist — a message that could be considered a warning to his successor.
The pope recalled the day in April 2005 when he assumed the papacy, and, in an apparent message to his successor, said that whoever succeeds him “no longer has any privacy. He belongs forever and totally to everyone, to all the church.”
Recalling the day he was elected pope on April 19, 2005, Benedict said he took on a forever job. “He who assumes the ministry of Peter no longer has any privacy,” he said. “He belongs forever and totally to all people, to all the church. The private dimension is totally, so to speak, removed from his life.”
“My decision to renounce the active exercise of the ministry does not change that. I am not returning to private life, to a life of travel, meetings, receptions, conferences et cetera. I am not abandoning the cross, but I remain close to the crucified Lord in a new way,” he said.
And that will not change, he said, despite the fact that he has given up his ministry and is turning to a life of prayer, without the trips, meetings, receptions and conferences that make up so much of a pope’s life. “There is no returning to the private,” Benedict said, but he will serve the church “in a new way.”
Vatican officials said around 50,000 tickets had been requested for the occasion, which drew many more pilgrims into the broad boulevard leading toward the Vatican from the Tiber River.
Stirring the waters of the Benedict years were a contagion of child sexual abuse scandals involving priests, missteps that provoked the anger of some Jews, Muslims and Anglicans, and the leaking of damaging internal Vatican documents. More recently, Italian news reports have said an investigation by three cardinals into the leaked documents has detailed corruption in the Vatican ranks.
“I’ve never felt lonely while carrying the burden and the joy of Peter’s ministry,” the pope also said. “Many people have helped me, the cardinals with their advice, wisdom and friendship, my collaborators starting with the state secretary and the whole Curia, many of whom lend their service in the background, and all of you,” he said.
Benedict, who is the first pope in nearly 600 years to step down voluntarily, repeated the explanation he proffered in making the announcement on Feb. 11. “In these last months, I felt that my strength was diminished,” he said. He asked God to help him make the decision “not for my good, but for the good of the church.”
“The pope is never alone, and I can now feel it in such a great way that it touches my heart,” he added.
He said he took the step fully aware of its seriousness and novelty, “but with a profound serenity of spirit.”
Vatican officials said 150,000 people packed into the square and the avenue leading to it to hear the pope speak, although other estimates put the figure lower. Around 70 cardinals lined up to listen to him in their crimson skullcaps.
In an Academy Awards-like passage, Benedict also gave thanks to a list of people: his “brother cardinals”; the members of the Vatican Curia, or administrative body; the Holy See’s diplomatic corps; the bishops; and the “ordinary people” who had sent their good wishes.
The pope, who is 85, sent shock waves around the Roman Catholic world on Feb. 11 when he announced he would resign effective Thursday. He is scheduled to leave Rome by helicopter for the papal summer residence at Castel Gandolfo and greet residents and well-wishers there before his retirement formally comes into effect at 8 p.m. At that point, the ceremonial Swiss Guards will march off from the Vatican, signifying that their job of protecting the pope is over until a successor is appointed.
Many in the square traveled from outside Rome. “We came to give the pope our support,” said Giovanni Sali, 25, a student with a pierced lip and sunglasses who had arrived from central Italy. “We want him to know we are close to him.”
Dressed in white, the pope rode in a covered vehicle known as the popemobile, flanked by security guards, on Wednesday, weaving through the crowd. Several times, the pope halted to bless babies handed to him from the throng.
About 70 cardinals, some of whom had arrived in recent days in anticipation of the conclave to elect a new pope, were seated in the square, rising to join in several minutes of applause at the end of the speech. The cardinals plan to gather on Monday to set the date for the conclave to begin.
“We came to give the pope our support,” said Giovanni Sali, 25, a student who had traveled from central Italy. “We want him to know we are close to him.”
After the speech, it was on to those routine meetings with dignitaries that popes hold — but again, freighted with significance because they were the last in Benedict’s pontificate. According to a list provided by the Vatican, the pope met, in the Clementine Hall of the Apostolic Palace, the president of Slovakia, Ivan Gasparovic, and officials of the tiny republic of San Marino, the principality of Andorra, the German state of Bavaria (Benedict’s home state) and the mayor of Rome, Gianni Alemanno.
Lucilla Martino, from Rome, said she had been surprised when the pope announced his resignation, but it had been a “positive shock” and “the right thing to do.”
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The resignation left officials scrambling to deal with the protocols of his departure as he ceases to be the leader of the world’s 1.1 billion Roman Catholics. Only on Tuesday did the Vatican announce that he will keep the name Benedict XVI and will be known as the Roman pontiff emeritus or pope emeritus.
Rachel
Donadio contributed reporting.
He will dress in a simple white cassock, forgoing the mozzetta, the elbow-length cape worn by some Catholic clergymen, the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, told reporters at a news briefing on Tuesday.
And he will no longer wear the red shoes typically worn by popes, symbolizing the blood of the martyrs, Father Lombardi said, opting instead for a more quotidian brown.
Benedict’s resignation has also triggered a surge of maneuvering among the more than 100 cardinals who will elect his successor in a conclave starting next month, reviving concerns about the clerical abuse scandals that dogged Benedict’s time at the Vatican.
Indeed, the abrupt resignation of the most senior Roman Catholic cardinal in Britain on Monday — after accusations that he made unwanted sexual advances toward priests years ago — showed that the taint of scandal could force a cardinal from participating in the selection of a new pope.
His exit came as at least a dozen other cardinals tarnished with accusations that they had failed to remove priests accused of sexually abusing minors were among those gathering in Rome to prepare for the conclave.
But there was no indication that the church’s promise to confront the sexual abuse scandal had led to direct pressure on those cardinals to exempt themselves from the conclave.
Rachel Donadio reported from Vatican City, and Alan Cowell from Paris. Gaia Pianigiani contributed reporting from Rome.
