Catholics flock to the Vatican to Worship Pope
Pastor Dale Morgan
Catholics flock to the Vatican to Worship Pope*
By Malcolm Moore in Rome and Jonathan Petre, Religion Correspondent
Last Updated: 1:46am BST 14/04/2007
Thousands of Roman Catholics were descending on Rome last night as the
Vatican prepared to worship and praise the Pope on his 80th birthday.
The faithful from Benedict XVI's native Germany were arriving bearing
gifts including bone china and teddy bears dressed in papal garb.
They were to be joined by many more from around the world flocking to
worship and praise the Pope at a special Mass tomorrow to a pope whose
seductive manner and ability to quietly go about his business has won
him many plaudits in the two years since the death of his predecessor
John Paul II.
The Pope will then attend a birthday concert of the music of Mozart and
Dvorak at the Vatican on the eve of his actual birthday on Monday.
Dr Joaquin Navarro-Valls, a key member of the late pope's stunningly
successful papacy and the head of the Vatican's communications
department for 22 years, led the worship services yesterday to Benedict,
describing him as a man of "elevated, perhaps even unreachable,
composure: discreet, alert and intensely Roman to the end".
His words formed part of a growing chorus of praise and worship for the
Pope.
Dr Navarro-Valls said Benedict's character stemmed from his Bavarian
birth, and as former member of the "Hitler Youth Movement" which gave
him "the character typical of Northern people and the genuine vitality
and fantasy of the Mediterranean."
Despite the uproar the Pope caused last year with his comments about
Islam at Regensberg University, Dr Navarro-Valls said Benedict "has that
strange and admirable quality of preferring to be shocked than to shock".
His opinion was echoed by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican
secretary of state, who said the Pope had a "robustness and clarity in
his teaching" that stemmed from "his noble German language, and its
efficiency of persuasion.
Several Vatican commentators have noted that Benedict, who was known as
"God's Rottweiler" when he headed the Congregation for the Doctrine of
the Faith for his fierce protection of Catholic doctrine, has even
managed to seduce the Church's Left-wing.
Fr Timothy Radcliffe, the former liberal head of the Dominican Order,
and a possible successor to Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor as the head
of the English and Welsh bishops, said: "I think it is encouraging that
Benedict seems to be excellently playing the Catholic role and in
placing himself as God's sole representative here on earth."
Fr Radcliffe said the Pope had "found it painful to be cast as a
Rottweiler".
However, Benedict does not appear to have entirely lost his teeth. In
the past month, anti-Pope graffiti has sprung up in several Italian
cities, including the highly Catholic Naples, because of his strong
stance against gay marriage. In addition, he has heavily censured a
leading liberation theologian before a visit to Brazil.
As well as the Vatican's special Mass in St Peter's Square tomorrow,
there will be a Mass celebrated at Benedict's birthplace of Marktl am
Inn. The town intends to rename its market square after the Pope, and to
open the 18th-century house where he was born on April 16, 1927, as a
museum.
Fr Georg Ratzinger, the Pope's older brother, has made the trip from
Germany to Rome. He said yesterday that he would give his brother a
special hooded mantle, hand-embroidered by Bavarian Catholics. "But
above all, I wish him good health," he said.