Vatican City, Apr 4, 2012 / 09:45 am
Pope Benedict XVI has thanked the Mexican and Cuban people for providing him with six “unforgettable days of joy and hope that will remain etched in my heart.”
“Their inexhaustible joy, expressed with loud songs and music, as well as their eyes and their gestures, expressed the strong desire of all the children of Mexico, Latin America and the Caribbean to live in peace, serenity and harmony, in a more just and reconciled society,” said Pope Benedict during his April 4 general audience in St. Peter’s Square.
In keeping with his usual custom, the Pope devoted the majority of his first general audience after he traveled to Mexico and Cuba to assessing the visit.
He told the more than 11,000 pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square that memories of the March 23- 28 journey “aroused emotions that are still very much alive,” such that his soul “instinctively gives thanks to the Lord” who “in his providence … wanted me to go for the first time as the Successor of Peter to these two countries.”