Pope urges Venetians to promote a welcoming and sharing culture

Continuing his pastoral visit to northeastern Italy, Pope Benedict greeted thousands of faithful packed into Venice's St. Mark's Square and urged the city and its people to assume important responsibilities in the promotion of a welcoming and sharing culture. He also recalled Venice's special vocation over the centuries of being a bridge between East and West. Our correspondent in Venice, Chris Altieri, sent this report on the pope's arrival in the lagoon city and his address to its inhabitants:

"The Sun was rapidly setting as Pope Benedict XVI approached the pier at St Mark’s Square in Venice Saturday evening, where he greeted the city fathers and the faithful before going into the Basilica of St. Mark for private, prayerful recollection and veneration of the evangelist’s relics, which have been conserved in the basilica for more than a thousand years.

All the way in, shouts went up from the square, barges blasted their water canon and church bells pealed their sonorous salute to Peter, as the lion of St Mark danced in the seaward breeze.

After his landing and reception by the civil authorities of the city, the region and the Italian republic, there was a brief tour of the piazza, where thousands of Venetians were on hand to greet his Holiness – and then, Pope Benedict climbed the stair and took his place on the richly carpeted raised red dais.

As they had that afternoon in Aquileia, Pope Benedict’s evening remarks in Venice went beyond the perfunctory exchange of pleasantries that these encounters always have – though in Venice, the perfunctory entails a great deal of pomp and pageantry. Rather, the Holy Father again praised the the past glory of la serenissima, and challenged this Venetian generation to be the equals and even the betters of their forbears, who, he said, were honest and industrious, with great sensibility, organizational skills and what in everyday language is called “good sense.”

“This patrimony of civil traditions, culture and art,” said Pope Benedict, “found rich development thanks also to Venetians’ embrace of the acceptance of Christian faith.”

The power of the faith to inform and perfect the culture in which and to which it is proclaimed: this has been a constant refrain of Pope Benedict’s pontificate: a motif of his thinking with the Church for decades before his election; and it has been a central theme of this visit to northeastern Italy.

“Over the centuries,” said Pope Benedict, “the faith transmitted by the first evangelists weaved itself ever more deeply into the social fabric, and eventually became an essential part of it.” – and the beautiful churches and the many devotional shrines that line, adorn and connect the streets, canals and bridges of Venice are visible proof of this.

Recalling the Church of the Redeemer and the Sanctuary of the Madonna della Salute – this last being an untranslatable play on the twofold meaning of the Latin and Italian words for health and also for salvation – both of which were built in fulfilment of Venetians’ vows, made to obtain divine deliverance from a plague that was upon the city – Pope Benedict said, “Your ancestors knew very well that human life is in God's hands and that without his blessing man builds in vain.”

“So,” prayed Pope Benedict, “as I visit your city, I ask the Lord to give you all a sincere and fruitful faith, a faith that can nourish both great hope, and the patient search for the common good.”

Listen to his report: