Pope Benedict XVI in Portugal - Discourse No. 1 - Arrival Ceremony
(11 May 10 - RV) Pope Benedict XVI has arrived in Lisbon Portugal. Below we publish
his address at Portela Airport, Lisbon:
Mr President, Distinguished Authorities, Dear
Brother Bishops, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Only now has it been possible for
me to accept the kind invitations of the President and my Brother Bishops to visit
this beloved and ancient Nation, which this year is celebrating the centenary of the
proclamation of the Republic. As I set foot on Portuguese soil for the first time
since Divine Providence called me to the See of Peter, I feel greatly honoured and
I am moved to gratitude by the respectful and hospitable presence of all of you.
I thank you, Mr President, for your kind words of welcome, giving voice to the sentiments
and the hopes of the beloved Portuguese people. To all, whatever their faith or religion,
I extend a greeting in friendship, especially to those who were unable to be here
to meet me. I come as a pilgrim to Our Lady of Fatima, having received from on high
the mission to strengthen my brothers as they advance along their pilgrim journey
to heaven. Since the earliest days of their nationhood, the Portuguese people have
looked to the Successor of Peter for recognition of their existence as a Nation; in
due course, one of my predecessors was to honour Portugal, in the person of its King,
with the title “most faithful” (cf. Pius II, Bull Dum Tuam, 25 January 1460),
for long and distinguished service to the cause of the Gospel. As for the event that
took place 93 years ago, when heaven itself was opened over Portugal – like a window
of hope that God opens when man closes the door to him – in order to refashion, within
the human family, the bonds of fraternal solidarity based on the mutual recognition
of the one Father, this was a loving design from God; it does not depend on the Pope,
nor on any other ecclesial authority: “It was not the Church that imposed Fatima”,
as Cardinal Manuel Cerejeira of blessed memory used to say, “but it was Fatima that
imposed itself on the Church.” The Virgin Mary came from heaven to remind us of
Gospel truths that constitute for humanity – so lacking in love and without hope for
salvation – the source of hope. To be sure, this hope has as its primary and radical
dimension not the horizontal relation, but the vertical and transcendental one. The
relationship with God is constitutive of the human being, who was created and ordered
towards God; he seeks truth by means of his cognitive processes, he tends towards
the good in the sphere of volition, and he is attracted by beauty in the aesthetic
dimension. Consciousness is Christian to the degree to which it opens itself to the
fullness of life and wisdom that we find in Jesus Christ. The visit that I am now
beginning under the sign of hope is intended as a proposal of wisdom and mission. From
a wise vision of life and of the world, the just ordering of society follows. Situated
within history, the Church is open to cooperating with anyone who does not marginalize
or reduce to the private sphere the essential consideration of the human meaning of
life. The point at issue is not an ethical confrontation between a secular and a
religious system, so much as a question about the meaning that we give to our freedom.
What matters is the value attributed to the problem of meaning and its implication
in public life. By separating Church and State, the Republican revolution which took
place 100 years ago in Portugal, opened up a new area of freedom for the Church, to
which the two concordats of 1940 and 2004 would give shape, in cultural settings and
ecclesial perspectives profoundly marked by rapid change. For the most part, the
sufferings caused by these transformations have been faced with courage. Living amid
a plurality of value systems and ethical outlooks requires a journey to the core of
one’s being and to the nucleus of Christianity so as to reinforce the quality of one’s
witness to the point of sanctity, and to find mission paths that lead even to the
radical choice of martyrdom. Dear Portuguese brothers and sisters, my friends,
I thank you once more for your cordial welcome. May God bless those who are here
and all the inhabitants of this noble and beloved Nation, which I entrust to Our Lady
of Fatima, the sublime image of God’s love embracing all as children.