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Catholic World News News Feature

Easter message: World needs our witness to Resurrection April 09, 2007

Today's world "expects from Christians a renewed witness to the resurrection of Christ," Pope Benedict XVI said in his Urbi et Orbi message at midday on Easter Sunday.

Speaking to a throng of over 100,000 people, who filled St. Peter's Square and spilled out onto the street outside the Vatican, the Holy Father based his message on the profession of faith by the apostle Thomas, when he met the risen Christ: "My Lord and my God!" The world needs to recognize Jesus in this same way, the Pope said.

[The full text of the Pope's Urbi et Orbi message is available on the Vatican web site.]

St. Thomas initially had doubts, the Pope remarked. He continued: "If we can recognize in this Apostle the doubts and uncertainties of so many Christians today, the fears and disappointments of many of our contemporaries, with him we can also rediscover with renewed conviction, faith in Christ dead and risen for us."

In his Easter message the Pope listed many of the reasons for doubts and fears in the world today. He cited first the natural disasters that have struck in places like Madagascar and the Solomon Islands. He mentioned the warfare and brutality in Darfur, the Congo, Sri Lanka and Somalia, and the "grievous crisis" in Zimbabwe that threatens further bloodshed. The Middle East is troubled, the Pope went on, and "nothing positive comes from Iraq, torn apart by continual slaughter as the civil population flees."

Despite all these problems, the Holy Father said, in the light of the Resurrection "we can see the evils which afflict humanity with the eyes of hope." Christians, he said, can celebrate at Easter because "the Lord has not taken away suffering and evil from the world but has vanquished them at their roots by the superabundance of his grace."

The Pope delivered his Urbi et Orbi message from the loggia of St. Peter's basilica after having celebrated Mass on Easter Sunday morning. The voice was somewhat hoarse, showing the effects of a heavy public schedule over the past several days, but the atmosphere was festive. The Vatican was bathed in sunshine as the Pope spoke, and the loggia was decorated with the tulips and apple blossoms that have been brought from Utrecht to adorn the Vatican basilica each Easter Sunday for the past 22 years.

Several hours earlier the Pope had led the Easter Vigil, baptizing 6 women (including 2 from China) and 2 children during the 3-hour service. On Good Friday he had led thousands of people in the Way of the Cross at the Roman Coliseum, and on Holy Thursday he celebrated the Chrism Mass in the morning with the clergy of Rome before opening the Easter Triduum with the Mass of the Lord's Supper in the basilica of St. John Lateran in the evening.

The Pontifical Council for Social Communications announced that 108 television networks from 67 countries broadcast the Pope's Easter message. Nearly 70 stations, from 41 countries, had aired the Way of the Cross.