Instrumentum mensis Decembris pro lectura Magisterii Summi Pontifici Benedicti XVI pro evangelizatione in terris missionum

Saturday, 13 January 2007

As every year, one of the most important moments of the month of December is the Holy Father’s annual meeting with the Roman Curia just before Christmas to exchange Christmas Greetings. On this occasion Pope Benedict XVI reflected on the more important events of the year, focussing especially his Apostolic Journeys. The Pope underlined that the theme that the terms “God” and “peace” are closely connected was the determinant aspect of his four apostolic visits in 2006. His visit to Poland, the homeland of Pope John Paul II, “was an intimate duty of gratitude for all that he gave to me personally and above all to the Church and to the world during the quarter century of his service.”. The journey to Valencia in Spain, for the World Meeting of Families, was an opportunity for the Holy Father to realise Europe’s serious problem “which it seems no longer wants to have children”, a problem- the Pontiff said - “which penetrated my soul”. The main theme in Germany was God. “The Church must speak of many things: of all the issues connected with the human being, of her own structure and of the way she is ordered and so forth. But her true and - under various aspects - only theme is "God", said Benedict XVI. Last of all “the visit to Turkey” which - the Pope said - afforded me the opportunity to show also publicly my respect for the Islamic Religion”.


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