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Cardinal Jorge Medina Estévez, solemnly announced last Tuesday, April 19, “a great joy” (gaudium magnum): “we have a pope!” (Habemus Papam!).
The church throughout the world joyfully received the news of the election of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as the new successor of St. Peter, and that he had chosen Benedict XVI as his name.
The American cardinals attending the conclave at a press conference praised the spiritual, intellectual and pastoral abilities of the new pontiff and all the people who have worked close to him confirmed his humble and kind personality.
By now, people around the world have learned about the new pope through the media reports: he is a simple man, who walked to his old apartment outside the Vatican to pick up his personal belongings and to say goodbye to his neighbors.
He is also a dynamic pontiff: in less than 48 hours he put the Vatican offices back to work, appointing and confirming his collaborators. |
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He is also showing himself as a successor of Peter with great spiritual sensitivity. In fact, in his first speech, given less than 24 hours after being elected, he pointed out “my pontificate starts as the church is living the special year dedicated to the Eucharist. How can I not see in this providential coincidence an element that must mark the ministry to which I have been called?”
His openness to the divine signs led him to address his first request as a pope to us: “I ask everyone to intensify in coming months love and devotion to the Eucharistic Jesus and to express in a courageous and clear way the real presence of the Lord, above all through the solemnity and the correctness of the celebrations.”
In the days and months to come, we will know more about Pope Benedict XVI, but he’s already surprising the mass media, especially those who had been quick in judging and labeling him.
However, as Catholics, we do not welcome Benedict XVI only for his human qualities and leadership, but because we truly believe that through his election the cardinals of the Catholic Church have expressed the will of the Holy Spirit and have given Catholics a new Vicar of Christ, a new head for the church.
A friend of mine who had the opportunity to be in St. Peter’s Square on the day that the new pope was announced, told me that he saw a very emotional scene: a young mother who was there to see the new pope trying to explain to her two young children why people were so happy said to them: “it is because we are not alone anymore; now we have a pope who will take care of us.”
Only a mother understands what it really means to take care of children, and this Roman mother explained to her children the meaning of the pontificate with more accuracy than many theological books.
The pope is the universal father that watches over the whole church. Without the Vicar of Christ, bishops could not be appointed; without bishops, there would be no priests; and without priests, we wouldn’t have most of the sacraments, essential for our life of faith.
Let us welcome then, with love and gratitude, the person and the teachings of the new successor of St. Peter and Vicar of Christ. Let us lift our prayers, fervently and tirelessly, for him and his challenging mission. Let us listen to him, and try to put his teachings into practice.
I invite all the faithful of the Archdiocese of San Antonio to express our fidelity and union with this worthy successor of the beloved and missed John Paul II, especially every time that we pray for him when his name is mentioned in the eucharistic prayer at Mass.
May God, through the intercession of Mary, mother of the church, renew us in our love to Christ, to the church and to his visible head, the pope. |