Post-Benedict, post-Cologne

So much was written before, during and after Pope Benedict's visit to the world's youths in Cologne that we risk being repetitive, if not boring. But we take the risk just the same because this trip was so important for the Pope and the Church.

A Christian Outlook, in one of its comments following the election of Benedict XVI, had predicted that he was going to be the people's Pope and not a "Panzer" Pope. We explained that Benedict would break the media stereotypes built around him and that his Papacy would not be a continuation of the headship of the Congregation of Faith.

We are happy to note that a similar comment was made by the editor of The Tablet (August 27) while commenting on the Pope's first visit outside Italy. "Those who assumed that as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger ("God's Rottweiler" of the tabloid imagination) was writing the script of the next Papacy have been confounded. The papal style so far has more than a hint of the Ratzinger who was the rising star and leading progressive reformer at the Second Vatican Council."

Pope Benedict stole the hearts of so many not by attempting to mimic John Paul II but by being himself. His style is so different, but we are seeing that there is a place in people's hearts for a different style as well. During the World Day of Youth there was the custom that the Pope meets a small group of young people.

One of those present said she felt like hugging him as she would have done to John Paul II but felt she couldn't. This did not mean that the meeting was cold. It was anything but. Benedict XVI stole their hearts by his deep care for each and every one of them. They said that they could feel it in his constant eye contact with them, the intensity of his questions and the lucidity of his answers. The reaction of this small group of youths was then extrapolated to the hundreds of thousands who crowded the Marienfeld.

Commenting on the Pope's first 100 days (July 31) we noted that it was becoming more and more clear that this Papacy would emphasise the idea of the Pope as a teacher and a theologian. The Pope's spokesman, Joaquin Navarro Valls, said almost the same thing when answering a comment by a journalist - this will not be a Papacy of big gestures but a papacy build on communicative words.

Benedict XVI himself commented on his German visit while he was addressing last Wednesday's general audience in Paul VI Hall. He expressed the hope that the one million participants who gathered in Cologne for World Youth Day will become heralds of a "new springtime" for the world.

May "the young people of Cologne bear with them the light of Christ, who is truth and love, and spread it everywhere," said the Pope.

Recalling that the theme of World Youth Day focused on the Magi's words, "We Have Come to Worship Him," the Pope explained that those mysterious characters from the East were the guides of those young pilgrims to Christ."

The image of the Magi was also used in the editorial of The Tablet to which we already referred. We use one of its paragraphs as our conclusion.

"It was by undertaking a spiritual journey towards Jesus Christ - he used repeatedly the metaphor of the Three Magi, whose relics are said to lie in Cologne Cathedral - that the individual blossomed into the person he or she was meant to be. From that it followed that a less than wholehearted commitment would cause them to fail to fulfil their potential. This is a much more profound and attractive approach to issues like human sexuality, and puts them in their context. The core strategy is to deepen the faith of the people, and let lesser matters fall into place of their own accord."