Germany awaits Pope Benedict

Pope Benedict XVI is set to begin his 21^st Apostolic voyage outside of Italy Thursday when he touches down in Berlin, Germany. It is his third pastoral visit to his homeland but his first state visit to the Federal Republic. Vatican Radio’s Veronica Scarisbrick is in Berlin and sends us this report ahead of the Pope’s arrival in the capital:

In Berlin it’s tough to follow the path of “the Wall” , it was dismantled twenty two years ago , a hundred and sixty two kilometres of it . This city which was once at the heart of 20th century geopolitics, as the stage of Nazi Germany and subsequent Cold War has moved beyond East West boundaries, slowly cancelling its grey and miserable traces. And when on Thursday 22nd of September Pope Benedict comes back to his homeland on his first State visit it’s to a nation that since reunification in 1990, unlike his fellow countrymen he’s never lived in .

Granted he’s been back since then before his election to the papacy , first in 2005 for World Youth Day in Cologne and then a year later on a personal pilgrimage to his native Bavaria . Has been informed in detail by his closest advisors back in Germany on the troubled political and social scenario , the economic crisis, the concern for the environment. But it’s more from hearsay behind Vatican Walls than personal experience.

So when amid controversies both from within Parliament and without he addresses the Bundestag, the German Lower House of Parliament on Thursday afternoon, invited to do so, he may be doing what as an academic he does best but treads tricky ground. From within some members of opposition in Parliament have boycotted the event , to put it bluntly, on the grounds that he’s more of a religious leader than a Head of State . After all this privilege is only allotted to heads of State. From without organized protests have been scheduled on all kinds of different grounds : distaste for Rome’s teaching regarding the usual issues such as birth control, abortion, the rights of homosexuals and more recently the clerical sexual abuse scandal which rocked the nation. But no surprise this is the land where the word Protestant was invented. No offence, a historical fact.

And no personal gripe either , this was where Pope John Paul was badly contested despite his instrumental role in bringing down “The Wall” here. Benedict XVI will not back out of this historical moment, he’s been patiently waiting to go on a State visit back home for six years, becoming on Thursday the third Roman Pontiff to address Parliament. John Paul II did this twice, first in his nation’s capital Warsaw and then in Rome.

So what better way to begin a State visit than with such a high profile key note address. What he will say is idle speculation , what’s certain is that in the midst of a crisis surrounding Europe’s common currency he’ll certainly return to one of his favourite topics , the lasting legacy of Europe’s common Christian heritage .
But beyond this event the four day visit which ends in Freiburg a Catholic area of Germany’s South West this visit, which includes three open air masses, has a pastoral dimension to it. Although timed at a moment of crisis and heated debate within the Catholic Church itself .

But the Holy Father, it transpires from the motto of the visit: “Wherever God is, there is the future”, words taken from a homily delivered at the Marian shrine of Mariazell in Austria in 2007, wishes to bring a message of hope to all of his fellow countrymen.

Passionate about new evangelization , about breaking down walls of distrust between people through dialogue, in the course of his visit the Pope will be meeting with Christians and non Christians alike. In Berlin with Jews whose numbers have risen since the fall of “The Wall “ thanks to an influx of migrants from the Soviet Union . And with Muslims , mainly Turkish, who have been affected too by the 1990 reunification.

And of course in Germany, where Catholics share equal numbers with the Protestant Church, there will be a historical meeting with followers of the Father of the Reformation, Martin Luther. It will take place South of Berlin on Friday 23rd of September , at Erfurt in former Eastern Europe. There he will symbolically tread the turf where Luther once trod, at a time when celebrations are underway looking to 2017, a benchmark which marks five centuries since the break from Rome.

Here in Germany Protestants and Catholics, whose individual identity, they tell me, is sometimes blurred to many, share a lot.. For example dwindling numbers. They’re also the separated brethren the Pope knows best.

And in the Land of Luther there will be a symbolic dedicated Catholic moment as well. In a remote Marian shrine in the hills in former Eastern Europe , the Holy Father will be treading that idea of “The Wall” once again in a tribute to those who kept the faith alive during the harsh days of the communist regime.

This four day visit to the land of Luther is complex, charged with events and speeches as well as being logistically complicated . Demanding for an eighty four year old Pontiff, who added his own personal request to the visit : a meeting with former Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl the architect of reunification and promoter of Europe.

It promises to be more than a footnote in history .Listen: