Pope's April 19 'Regina Coeli'

(April 20, 2009) Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday praised this week's United Nations anti-racism conference and urged countries to join forces to eliminate intolerance. The conference that began on Monday in Geneva is an important initiative, the pope said, because “even today, despite the lessons of history, such deplorable phenomena take place.” He was speaking to pilgrims at the papal summer residence of Castel Gandolfo, outside Rome, after his weekly midday ‘Regina Coeli’ prayer. Some countries are boycotting the meeting to protest language in the meeting's final document that they say could single out Israel for criticism and restrict free speech. Among those countries is the United States. Italy has also said it would skip the weeklong conference if changes are not made at the last minute. The Netherlands announced on Sunday that it would not go to the conference because some nations are using it as a platform to attack the West. Pope Benedict said he sincerely hoped that delegates who attend the conference work together, “with a spirit of dialogue and reciprocal acceptance, to put an end to every form of racism, discrimination and intolerance.” Such an effort, the Pope said, would be “a fundamental step toward the affirmation of the universal value of the dignity of man and his rights.” He told pilgrims that the declaration, born out of the first world conference on racism in Durban, South Africa, in 2001, recognized that “all peoples and persons form one human family, rich in diversity.” But beyond such declarations, firm and concrete action is needed at national and international levels, he said. The Vatican, an independent city state that holds observer status at the United Nations, has sent a delegation to Geneva for the racism conference.
Pope Benedict XVI also used his Sunday ‘Regina Coeli’ prayer to thank Catholics worldwide for prayers and good wishes for his 82^nd birthday on April 16 and the 4^th anniversary of his election to the papacy on Sunday, April 19. "In the atmosphere of joy that comes from faith in the risen Christ, I desire to express a most cordial 'thank you' to all those - and they are truly many - who have sent me a sign of affection and spiritual closeness in these days…” the Pope said before reciting the “Regina Coeli’ prayer. The pope thanked God for the “chorus of so much affection,” saying he never feels alone. “I have experienced the communion that surrounds and supports me: a spiritual solidarity essentially nourished by prayer, which is manifested in a thousand ways,” the Holy Father said. “We Catholics form and must feel ourselves to be a single family, animated by the same sentiments as the first Christian community,” which the Acts of the Apostles says had ‘one heart and one soul.'
After reciting the “Regina Coeli’ Pope Benedict also reflected on the Divine Mercy Sunday. He recalled that his predecessor, Pope John Paul II who established the feast on the Sunday after Easter, wanted to point “to the risen Christ as the font of confidence and hope, welcoming the spiritual message given by the Lord to St. Faustina Kowalska, synthesized in the invocation: 'Jesus, I trust in you.'" The Pope noted that after his Resurrection, Jesus gave his followers a newer and stronger unity, founded on the divine mercy, which made them feel they were all loved and forgiven by him. It is therefore the merciful love of God that firmly unites the Church, making humanity a single family - the divine love, which through Jesus crucified and risen forgives our sins and renews us from within," the Pope said.
The Holy Father extended a greeting to the "brothers and sisters of the Eastern Churches" who, according to the Julian calendar, celebrated Easter on April 19. He continued, "May the risen Lord renew the light of faith in all and give abundance of joy and peace."