Pope Benedict XVI concludes trip to Venice

Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday evening concluded his two-day trip to North-eastern Italy.

On Sunday morning, he celebrated mass for over 300,000 people outside of Venice on Sunday. During his homily, he called on the city to remember its historic role as a bridge between cultures, and said it was particularly important in light of the phenomenon of immigration and the new geopolitical circumstances.

Christopher Altieri was in Venice with the Pope, and sent this report describing his last day in Venice…

I was several hours early, if you reckon by the schedule. In effect, though, I was running late if you judge by the teeming multitude of humanity in which I was caught when I tried to cross the footbridge that overpasses the main traffic artery and opens onto San Giuliano park – the sprawling verdant stretch of public space where at 10 this morning, Pope Benedict XVI celebrated Mass under a Sun-drenched Venetian sky.

Several articles appearing in local papers over the past couple of days have recounted the polemical tones with which certain elements within both the civil community and the Church have approached this Papal visit: too much time in organizing, too much energy spent in a thousand ways, too many interruptions of daily life, including traffic patterns on sea, air and land; too much money in a time when money is short all around.

The locals this morning were predicting a turnout of about a hundred thousand: authorities estimate that 3 times that number were on hand to greet Pope Benedict as he approached the sanctuary in the popemobile and hear the choir intone the tu es petrus.

In his homily, Pope Benedict returned to what emerged from the very beginning of his public remarks as the central theme of this visit to north-eastern Italy: the integral role of the Church in public life, commerce and culture.

“It is significant,” said Pope Benedict, “that that the place chosen for this liturgy is the Parco San Giuliano: a place where you usually do not celebrate religious rituals, but cultural and musical events,” and he went on to say that on this Sunday, this space is host to the Risen Jesus, truly present in his Word, in the People of God with their pastors, and pre-eminently in the sacrament of his Body and his Blood.”

To be in the world, though not of it: this tension is perennially present in the life of the Church.

It was a tension the Holy Father addressed in his remarks at the Regina Coeli after Sunday Mass in Parco San Giuliano, this time in a prayerful and a Marian key:

“The Lord grant the people of this land,” he prayed, “long blessed with a rich Christian history, to live the Gospel after the model of the early Church, in which, "the multitude of those who came to faith had one heart and one soul" (Acts 4:32).

The Pope invoked the Blessed Virgin Mary, asking her to sustain the apostolic labors of priests, to make fruitful the testimony of men and women religious, enliven the daily work of parents in the first transmission of the faith their children, light the way for young people, so that they might walk confidently on the path traced by the faith of their fathers, fill the hearts of the elderly with hope; be near and comfort the sick and suffering, and strengthen the work of the many lay people who are active in the new evangelization in parishes.

Finally, he encouraged everyone to work with the true spirit of communion in the world, which he described as the great vineyard in which the Lord has called us to labour.

On Sunday afternoon, before going to bless the newly restored Trinity Chael at the Basilica della Salute, the Holy Father addressed the concluding assembly of the pastoral visit of the Patriarch of Venice, Cardinal Angelo Scola, whose detailed and thorough review of his diocese has shown that the problems, the challenges, the weaknesses and strengths of the Church in Venice are similar to those of other particular Churches, especially in one area: the need for more, stronger and better faith formation.

“I exhort you,” said Pope Benedict, “to spare no energy in the proclamation of the Gospel and in Christian education, promoting both catechesis at every level, from children to adults, and those formative and cultural activities, which constitute a real spiritual patrimony.”

The power of the Gospel to transform culture from within: here, the Holy Father came to the core of his message on this trip – and came to it in his final major public address, to leaders in art, culture and commerce at the Studium generale Marcianum, a centre of learning created by the Patriarchate for the preservation of culture and the furthering of the Church’s vision of wisdom as knowledge informed by charity.

“The Gospel,” said Pope Benedict, “is the greatest force for change in the world, but is not a utopia, nor an ideology. The first generations of Christians called him rather than the ‘way’, a way of life that Christ practiced in the first and invites us to follow.”

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