Advertise in this spot on CatholicCulture.org. View all ads.

Catholic World News News Feature

WITH THE POPE IN GERMANY June 24, 1996

By Jean-Marie Guenois

The following are short reflections on the appearances which Pope John Paul II made in Germany on a weekend trip from June 21-23. [The full texts of the addresses delivered by the Holy Father at these appearances can be obtained through the Vatican Information Service, which is also available through the EWTN news services.]

Roman Herzog, the president of the Federal Republic of Germany, welcomed Pope John Paul II to that country when he met him at the airport in Paderborn, and promptly recognized him as an important force in the recent history of the country. "I would like to thank you expressly for having contributed by your actions and by your personality to the falling of the Iron Curtain," he said at the Friday-afternoon arrival ceremonies.

The Pope -- visiting Germany for the third time in his pontificate, but the first time since the reunification of East and West -- came to the country facing three concerns: internal difficulties within the Catholic Church in Germany, the relationship between Catholics and Protestants (especially Lutherans), and the advance of a consumer culture -- a form of practical atheism -- in Germany and across Europe. At the airport ceremony, the Pope offered a preview of his visit, saying that he had come to "strengthen the lines of unity" in Germany and Europe.

As he celebrated Mass outdoors on a cool and rainy Saturday, the Holy Father urged German Catholics not to give in to discouragement, nor to allow themselves to become hostages to a "radical capitalist ideology." His message, which touched on the relationship between religion and politics, included a reference to the history of Germany -- to the time in the year 799 when Pope Leo III met with Charlemagne to affirm "the necessity of cooperation between the Pope and the Emperor -- or as we say today, between Church and State."

While he acknowledged the victory that had been achieved in 1989 with the fall of Communism, the Holy Father warned against a "radical individualism" which threatens the unity of Europe and the Christian identity of its people. He urged the German people, and especially the German Church, to be mindful of the needs of others, so that the newfound freedom of the country could be turned to the common good. He appealled to Catholic priests, in particular, to live out their vows of service to the community.

At a Saturday gathering of ecumenical leaders in Paderborn, the Holy Father made an unprecedented appeal: that all Christians -- Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants -- should work together to re-evangelize the continent of Europe. The Pope also made a dramatic gesture toward the world's Lutherans, saying that we must give Martin Luther his just due, and acknowledge that among the causes of the rupture within Christianity that came at the time of the Reformation, some of the fault must be found in the failings of the Catholic Church. The Pope said that Martin Luther's "original intention" -- to reform the Church and purge her of abuses -- was a good one, and should find its counterpart in the heart of every committed Christian.

Meeting with the German bishops on Saturday evening, the Pope observed that they will now be called to lead Germany through a "second phase" of national reunification. The phase of political and economic reunification is now ending, he explained, and the time has come to look toward a "moral and spiritual" reunification.

He spoke against a background of protest within the German Catholic community. The group known as "We are the Church" has collected nearly 2 million signatures on a petition calling for changes in Catholic teaching, especially on matters of sexual morality. The Pope cautioned that it is difficult to serve the needs of the most faithful Catholics when issues of secondary importance are constantly being thrust into the public consciousness. He pointedly told the German bishops that they are not -- and cannot be -- dispensed from their duty to supervise the formation of the Catholic people, and particularly the seminarians and Catholic students who will serve the next generation. And he called upon them to fulfill their obligation to discipline those who attack the Church from within.

In Berlin on Sunday, the Pope turned to the past of this historic and symbolic city, and made it the backdrop for an optimistic look toward the future. In the morning he presided at the beatification of two priests who died in the Nazi concentration camps. At noon, after the Angelus, he announced that he would convene a second synod of the bishops of all Europe for January of the Jubilee Year 2000. In the afternoon, he met with a delegation of Jewish leaders, and issued a new condemnation of anti-Semitism -- both as it was displayed most horribly in the Holocaust, and as it survives in less gross forms today. And in a dramatic finale for his first visit to Germany since the reunification of the country, the Holy Father stood at Brandenburg Gate, the principal symbol for the Wall that no longer divides the city, to deliver an unusually impassioned address on the meaning and the price of human freedom.

Pope John Paul said that the two priests who were beatified, Bernard Lichtenberg and Karl Leissner, were arrested not only because they refused to compromise with the evil of the Nazi regime, but also because they had the courage to denounce the moral evil of national socialism. As pastor at the cathedral in Berlin, Lichtenberg prayed in public for "non-Aryan Christians, the persecuted Jews, and the prisoners in concentration camps." Such public witness, the Holy Father observed, pays homage to the demands of Christian faith, which does not allow compromise with the prevailing opinions of this world. He exhorted his congregation of 100,000 faithful to follow that example, and not allow their Christian identity to be tainted by bowing to contemporary customs.

As Mass concluded in the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, the Pope made his announcement of a second European synod, remarking that the site of the announcement was a particularly apt one, in view of Berlin's historic role at the heart of European history.

At his meeting with Jewish leaders, John Paul reflected on the meaning of human suffering, shown so horribly in the sufferings of Jewish people during the Holocaust. That hideous spectacle of inhumanity, he said, shows what men are capable of when they ignore the presence and power of God -- the face of a brutal and atheistic form of humanism.

After a short visit to the tomb of Blessed Bernhard Lichtenberg, the Holy Father then reached the historic Brandenburg Gate -- once an important symbol of the Nazi regime, and later a key to the limited exchanges that were possible between East and West Germany in the years of the Cold War. German Chancellor Helmut Kohl paid a special personal tribute to the Holy Father there, pointing to the Pope's own engagement in the historic events that led to the destruction of the Berlin Wall. "The people of Germany owe you a great deal," he said. "You made a decisive contribution to the disappearance of a totalitarian and anti-religious ideology which divided our continent, our country, and this very city."

In his turn, the Holy Father praised Kohl as "the principal artisan of unity for your people." He went on the pray that God would give the German people the strength to continue with their historic mission: building the unity of Europe's Christian civilization. He continued with his powerful speech on human freedom. Real freedom, he said, is not the right to act in an arbitrary fashion, nor can real freedom be realized without human solidarity and a spirit of sacrifice. Freedom, he said, is always at the service of love, because it is in loving relationships -- with God and his neighbors -- that man realizes his highest calling and his greatest freedom.