Washington D.C., Feb 13, 2006 / 22:00 pm
Sandro Magister, a columnist for the Italian magazine L’Espresso and one of the top “Vaticanistas”, an expert on Church affairs and the intricate world of the Vatican, gave yesterday an interview in Washington to Catholic leaders. He drew on the first months of Benedict XVI’s pontificate, and the current situation of the Catholic Church. The event took place at the Cosmos Club in Washington DC, and was sponsored by the Athanasius Conferences -an iniciative of the Morley Institute- and Catholic News Agency.
Magister affirms it is possible to identify a clear and coherent direction in the beginning of Pope Benedict’s pontificate. He particularly recalls the pope’s first Mass at Saint John Lateran, the cathedral of the bishop of Rome, on Saturday, May 7.
“In it, Benedict XVI asserted that the pope “must not proclaim his own ideas, but rather constantly bind himself and the Church to obedience to God's Word, in the face of every attempt to adapt it or water it down, and every form of opportunism.”
So this is the program Pope Benedict has enunciated since the beginning: that of restoring to the truth – which is Christ in the definitive – its primacy and splendor.”
“In ten months, he has shown his intention to carry this out in all areas: in his first encyclical, in the liturgy, in catechesis, in law, in pastoral practice, in the magisterium of the bishops, in the application of Vatican Council II, in working for peace…”
Reviewing Benedict XVI’s first encyclical, Magister underlines this same consistency with the beginning of his pontificate: “to speak the truth about love, a word today "so tarnished, so spoiled and so abused". To demonstrate that “Deus est caritas.”
“The encyclical is a letter to the Christian people, but is also addressed to those far from the faith, to the “secularists,” to those without faith. To all of these, Benedict XVI says: This is the true heart of the Christian faith. Understand this. With a God such as this, you may have the strength to live “as if God exists,” even if you do not have the strength to believe.”