Third day of Pope Benedict’s home-town visit in Bavaria, Germany

(11 Sep 2006) : On the third day of his six-day home-coming trip to Bavaria in Southern Germany, Pope Benedict XVI visited Altoetting, a town of some 13,000 people. The village is known as the religious heart of Bavaria because it is home to the country’s leading Marian shrine. Pope Benedict received a rapturous welcome in this small southern German shrine town. Trumpets blared as the Pope arrived in the small square flanked by buildings with onion domes and spires and said a mass for more than 70,000 people who waved German, Bavarian and Vatican flags as he arrived.

The Pope began his visit to Altoetting in the Chapel of Grace, where he prayed before a small wooden statue of the virgin with the infant Jesus known as the "Black Madonna" because it has been stained by candle soot over the centuries. But despite the festive atmosphere, the anniversary of September 11 was on everyone's minds. "Five years after the terror attack on the World Trade Center in New York, we ask for peace in the whole world," said a prayer read by a participant while the Pope listened intently. "We pray for our homeland, our families, for peace between the old and the young and for the unifying bond of faith," the prayer said. The Pope responded with the rest of the congregation "Christ hear us."

The tradition of Altoetting goes back to 1489, when a three year-old child who drowned in a nearby stream came back to life after his mother laid the body out before the statue, according to the legend. The cathedral often called St. Maria was built in 1488. The Cathedral is still overwhelming by its dimensions. It was planned for an assembly of about 3,000 people. Today, the number of pilgrims runs up to around 1 million each year. The great significance of the pilgrimage town of Altotting was demonstrated by the visit of Pope John Paul II in November of 1980. It was the second visit of a Ppe in the history of Altotting, the first being in 1782 by Pope Pius VI.

The Holy Eucharist began at 10.30 in the morning with solemn procession of a number of cardinals and bishop and priests. The choir sand heavenly hymns in praise of God and of Mother Mary. Among those waiting for the Pope on the altar platform was his older brother Georg Ratzinger, who is also a priest and for years director of a boys choir in Regensburg, where the Pope visits on Tuesday. The Pope used to make pilgrimages to Altoetting with his father as a boy and keeps a candle with an image of the "Black Madonna of Altoetting" on his desk in the Vatican. He dedicated his entire homily to the Virgin Mary and said Catholics should have total trust in God the way Mary trusted in her son Jesus.

After hearing the liturgy of the Word Pope Benedict delivered his homily in German. The pope confined his sermon to the Virgin Mary,

Jesus' mother, to whom the Altoetting shrine is devoted. “This is the mother that generations have come to Altoetting to visit,” he said. “To her e entrust our cares, our needs and our troubles.”

After the Holy Mass, the Holy Father then prayed in adoration of the Holy Eucharist for a few moments and carried the sacrament monstrance in procession to the recently opened Anbetungskapelle. There the Pope officially consecrated the new chapel.

Later on Monday the Pope was visiting Marktl am Inn, a village only 10 km (6 miles) away where he spent the first two years of his life and where he was due to pray in the parish church where he was baptised on the day he was born on April 16, 1927.