2012-06-26 11:36:15

Pope to Italy’s quake victims: ‘God is your rock’


(Vatican Radio) Pope Benedict XVI flew up to Italy’s northern region of Emilia Romagna Tuesday to express his solidarity and pray with victims of a series of powerful earthquakes that devastated the area last month. At least 12 thousand people across a large swathe of north central Italy saw their homes destroyed or damaged and are living in tents and makeshift camps. Thousands braved the soaring temperatures and scorching sun to greet the Pope when he arrived in San Marino di Carpi outside Modena and hear his words of comfort. Tracey McClure reports:

A visibly moved Pope Benedict said he had been following their plight since the first quake struck May 20th and had remained “close to them in prayer and concern.” But he said when he “heard their plight had become even harder, he felt an increasing need to come in person to be with them.”

In offering prayers for those families and communities who had lost loved ones in the destruction, the Pope said he “wanted everyone in every town to feel how the Pope’s heart is close to theirs to console them but above all to encourage and support” them.

Pope Benedict recalled flying over the stricken region on his way up to Milan in early June for the World Meeting of Families, saying he had wanted to visit them then and his “thoughts turned frequently to them.” He said he knew that “besides suffering the material consequences, your souls were also tried by the continued tremors, even strong ones; and by the loss of several symbolic (historic) buildings of your towns…amongst which many churches.”

On his arrival in Rovereto di Novi, near Modena, Pope Benedict toured the “red zone,” the historic and hardest hit part of town where parish priest Ivan Martini died in the collapse of his church as he tried to rescue a statue of Our Lady.

Paying tribute to his memory, the Pope commended the local clergy for demonstrating “generous love for God’s people” and pointed to the comfort he found in reading Psalm 46 which recalls the trembling earth. In that passage, the Pope said God is seen as “our refuge and our fortress” especially in times of anguish and duress.

“On this rock, with this firm hope,” the pope said, “we can build, we can rebuild.” And likening the tragedy to post war Italy, the Pope reminded the quake victims that they are not alone and that their country “was rebuilt certainly thanks also to the help received, but above all thanks to the faith of so many people moved by the spirit of true solidarity.”

I’m Tracey McClure

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