CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy, JULY 30, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Here is the brief address Benedict XVI gave Thursday after viewing a documentary on the first five years of his pontificate, titled «Fünf Jahre Papst Benedikt» (Five Years: Pope Benedict XVI). The film is a production of Bayerischer Rundfunk, a public broadcaster in Bavaria, Germany.
Michael Mandlik directs the film, and Gerhard Fuchs is the executive director.
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Eminence, Excellencies,
Dear Professor Fuchs, Dear Mandlik, Dear Friends, Ladies and Gentlemen,
At this moment I can only say thank you to Bayerischer Rundfunk for this extraordinary spiritual journey, which has enabled us to relive and see again determinant and culminating moments of these five years of my Petrine service and of the life of the Church herself.
It was for me personally very moving to see some moments, above all the one in which the Lord placed on my shoulders the Petrine service. A weight that no one could carry by himself with his limited strength, but which can be carried because the Lord carries it and carries me. It seems to me that in this film we saw the richness of the life of the Church, the multiplicity of cultures, of charisms, of different gifts that live in the Church and how in this multiplicity and great diversity the same one Church lives. And the Petrine primacy has this mandate to render the unity visible and concrete, in the historical, concrete multiplicity, in the unity of the present, past, future and the eternal.
We have seen that also today the Church, although she suffers so much, as we know, is, however, a joyful Church. It is not an aged Church, but we have seen that the Church is young and that faith creates joy. That is why I have found very interesting, a beautiful idea, that of inserting everything in the framework of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, of the «Hymn to Joy,» which expresses as the background of the whole of history, the joy of our redemption. I also found it beautiful that the film ends with the visit to the Mother of God, who teaches us humility, obedience and the joy that God is with us.
A cordial «may God render you merit» to you, dear Mr. Professor Fuchs, dear Mr. Mandlik and to all your collaborators, for this magnificent moment that you have given us.
[Translation by ZENIT]
