Vatican City, Dec 7, 2009 / 11:47 am
The president of Germany paid a visit to the Vatican marking the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of the German Republic and the twentieth anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall. His visit included a private audience with the Pope as well as presenting a concert in the Sistine Chapel.
Horst Kohler, president of the Federal Republic of Germany, spoke with Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday morning, touching on the current economic crisis, its consequences, and the current international situation.
The meeting was preceded by a concert marking Germany's dual anniversaries in the Sistine Chapel. The performance, which was offered by the German president, featured the Augsburger Domsingknaben (Augsburg Cathedral Boys Choir) and the Residenz-Kammerorchester Munchen (Resident Munich Chamber Orchestra). The two groups were conducted by Reinhard Kammler and played Johann Sebastian Bach's Christmas Oratorio BWV 248 (Cantatas I-III).
At the end of the concert, the Holy Father remarked on the fall of the Berlin Wall. Calling it a “frontier of death which for many years divided our homeland, forcibly separating people, families, neighbors and friends,” he said that “many at the time saw the events of November 9, 1989 as an unexpected dawn of freedom after a long and harsh night of violence and oppression due to a totalitarian system which, in the end, led to nihilism, to an emptying of souls.”