Joyful crowds of 5000 faithful greeted Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday who celebrated two hundred years since the birth of Leo XIII. He was visiting the late Pope's native town of Carpineto Romano near Rome. Pope Benedict celebrated Mass in honour of Pope Pecci, whom he called "a man of great faith and deep devotion." "In an era of bitter anti-clericalism and heated protests against the Pope," Benedict XVI said, "Pope Leo XIII was able to guide and support Catholics on a way of constructive involvement, rich in content, firm in principles and capable of openness." Leo was a very old Pope, he said, but also wise and farsighted, who introduced the Church to the twentieth century, rejuvenating her with the right attitude to facing new challenges. "He was a Pope still politically and physically 'prisoner' of the Vatican," Benedict said, "but in reality, with his Magisterium, he represented a Church capable of facing, without too many complexes, the great questions of the modern age." The Pope acknowledged that following Christ is difficult and that it "can not depend on enthusiasm and opportunism", insisting at the same time that without an interior union with God, "it's not possible to find the answers you seek." Benedict XVI concluded by urging everyone to be a leaven of hope - Christians "constitute a force for the good, for peace, and for profound change, avouring the development of potentials inherent to reality itself."

Joyful crowds of 5000 faithful greeted Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday who celebrated two hundred years since the birth of Leo XIII. He was visiting the late Pope's native town of Carpineto Romano near...leggi tutto