FOUR DAYS AWAY....
And we're almost at the start of the Holy Father's trip to Bavaria! Emma in the main forum found these pictures of a 'work in progress' on a field next to the Franz Josef Strauss international airport of Munich: "Bavaria greets (Bened)ikt XVI"...
What a great idea! I hope we will have pictures of the completed 'work' soon.
There is a flood of preparatory stories for the Bavaria visit in the Italian and German press. I hope to be able to start posting the Osservatore Romano/korazym.org series ASAP....Lots of pictures and details about the places the Pope will be visiting and his links to each!
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This is a story inserted here for the record, long after the evvet:
Papal Homecoming:
Benedict Faces a Fading Church
By MARK LANDLER and IAN FISHER
The New York Times
Published: September 9, 2006
Andreas Gebert/European Pressphoto Agency
An image of the pope etched across a 25-acre cornfield
will greet him as he flies into Munich Saturday.
REGENSBURG, Germany, Sept. 6 — Benedict XVI, who could be the last European pope for some time, arrives in Germany this weekend to visit home. He owns a house here, from his days as a theologian in this ancient Bavarian city. His older brother still lives here. Their parents are buried on a grassy hilltop above Regensburg, overlooking the majestic spires of the cathedral and the Danube.
But this will be no mere sentimental journey. Even here in Bavaria, Germany’s conservative and Catholic heartland, it will be in some ways a survey of the remnant that is the European church — and the perhaps impossible task this new pope faces in rebuilding it.
In 1978, the year that Benedict’s popular predecessor John Paul II was elected, regular Mass attendance in Germany was 30 percent. Today, it is under 15 percent.
“In the Western world today we are experiencing a wave of new and drastic enlightenment or secularization, whatever you want to call it,” Benedict told a group of German reporters last month, in a rare public papal interview. “It’s become more difficult to believe.”
That is a fact long acknowledged by the church. The faith’s new heart beats in the third world, in Africa, Asia and South America.
But Benedict — the product of the best and worst of Europe, an elder of its lofty universities and a conscript in the Nazi army — was chosen last year after John Paul’s death, in many ways, to shore up faith on a continent that has become less Christian, more Muslim and, critics say, spiritually adrift. He is expected to address the issue in his six days here, and some people, at least, are ready to give him a hearing.
“He wants to present a positive image of the church, not an image that excludes people,” said Florian Meier, a 24-year-old theology student at the University of Regensburg. “He doesn’t just want to talk about all the negative things, like abortion and contraception.”
In Mr. Meier’s case, he acknowledges, the pope will be preaching to the converted — and that, in fact, is a major part of Benedict’s long-term strategy to save the faith in Europe: focus on believers, but work to make the church attractive by emphasizing what life in the church can bring, rather than what it excludes. The effort, for Mr. Meier, has already dispelled the notion that the Catholic Church is a hopeless relic.
“What the pope has done is make it O.K. to say yes, we are Catholic, yes, we go to church,” Mr. Meier said.
While the decline of the church is undeniable, many studies show a rising interest in Europe in faith more generally. Pilgrimages are newly popular. A recent British television series on men entering a Catholic monastery attracted millions of viewers. The funeral of John Paul II also drew millions, and Benedict himself attracts hundreds of thousands every time he says a public Mass.
“The challenge for anybody in religious leadership is what they do in that oddly paradoxical combination of circumstances, which is the continuation of decline, but a rise in interest,” said Grace Davie, a professor of the sociology of religion at the University of Exeter in England. “I would not presume to say whether the pope is doing a good job or not. But I would say that the opportunity lies in capturing the moment.”
And so, this trip to his home turf provides a particularly relevant, even poignant, glimpse into the deep problems of the church, what the pope intends to do about them and what strides he might, or might not, be making.
All four of his trips as pope have been inside Europe, in part for the attention he wishes to devote to it, in part because Benedict, at 79, has said he does not have the stamina to travel as intrepidly as John Paul did.
Inevitably, so far, he has earned admirers and detractors in the nation that knows him best. Certainly, the election of this German pope, long an unyielding voice in the church, was not universally praised among German Catholics, many of whom worried he would not make an ideal bridge between an ancient faith and a modern, secular nation.
“My very first thought was, Oh my God, it’s Ratzinger!” Mr. Meier acknowledged.
Conservative, with more brains than charisma, Joseph Ratzinger, as Benedict was formerly known, is still famous here among theology students for his popular, incisive seminars and for his epic battles with liberal theologians like Hans Küng. The first fear among many, both students and Germans generally, was that he would be a reactionary pontiff.
But Germany has warmed to him, and in Regensburg the streets now ripple with the Vatican flag, an echo of the flag-waving euphoria and new national pride of this summer’s World Cup soccer tournament. Part of that appeal has been Benedict’s quiet and intellectual style, which, while decidedly not compromising on doctrine, has largely sought to avoid strident condemnation on moral issues.
Though he condemns homosexuality and same-sex marriage, he often prefers to emphasize God’s purpose in marriage between a man and a woman. His first encyclical was on love, a choice that surprised and heartened Ulrike Reis, 25, who is studying to be a teacher.
“As soon as he starts to say don’t, don’t, don’t, Germans will close their ears,” she said.
That is a conscious strategy on the pope’s part, aimed at not alienating the secular world as he articulates as appealing a vision of Catholicism as possible.
“Catholicism is not a collection of prohibitions,” he told the German reporters in the interview. “It’s a positive option. It’s very important that we look at it again because this idea has almost completely disappeared today.”
Conservative supporters of the pope believe both the message, and the style, is badly needed in Europe.
“He’s not going to do itwith thunderbolts,” said George Weigel, author of
God’s Choice, a book about the pope’s election and the church’s future. “He’s going to do it in a quiet, persuasive way, asking people to reconsider the possibility that spiritual boredom is one facet of the current European problem.”
A second prong of the Vatican’s strategy is to cultivate those who already believe, in effect to shore up what Benedict calls a “creative minority” to keep the church steady even in a shrunken state.
And so his speeches address the faithful more than the culture at large. This effort also accounts for his emphasis on back-to-basics Catholic practice, visiting shrines, especially to the Virgin Mary, and encouraging activist lay groups. There is only one major secular event on Benedict’s itinerary in his visit: a speech at the university here next Tuesday.
“If you look at the Catholic Reformation, the state of the church in 1520, how did the church pull itself together then?” asked Philip Jenkins, professor of religious studies at Penn State. “It was not to focus on every little political and social issue. It was a new focus on sanctity, new religious orders and, above all, a focus on Mary.
“And their view, I think, is if we do it again, maybe the 21st century will look more like the Catholic Reformation.
“Will it work? I do not see any huge turnaround in the very depressing statistics for institutional religion. Too soon to tell.”
Experts say, too, that the battle for faith will not be won by only accentuating the positive. John Paul was one of the best-loved people on earth, but still the church shrank. Real issues divide Catholics, not least how the church should move forward to reclaim a leading role in society.
In his visit, Benedict will see one of those disputes up close.
In Regensburg, the church has been rent with infighting since last fall, when the new bishop dismissed the entire lay council in a bid to consolidate the control of the clergy over church affairs. The bishop, Gerhard Ludwig Müller, handpicked new council members and decreed that all chairmen of local parish councils would now be priests.
The dispute was ostensibly over how much voice lay Catholics should have in running the diocese. “There can only be one shepherd,” said the bishop’s deputy, the Rev. Michael Fuchs. But many people here, even some not involved in the dispute, say it reflects a broader debate over how to adapt the church to modern times.
“This was a clash between an 18th-century, hierarchical understanding of the Catholic Church, and a modern, somewhat more democratic understanding of the church,” said Gustav Obermair, who was the rector of Regensburg University when the pope taught there.
There is evidence, too, that the dispute has alienated some parishioners. In the most recent election for parish councils, 200,000 people voted, 50,000 fewer than in the election four years earlier, a former council member said. The diocese, which covers much of eastern Bavaria, has 1.3 million members.
And other, broader issues divide Catholics in Europe, like the role of women, contraception, divorce, artificial fertilization, homosexuality, married priests and abortion.
“Many people aren’t finding a home in the Catholic Church — because of the lack of a role for women, because of the lack of democracy,” said Christian Weisner, spokesman for We Are Church in Germany, a liberal group. “In theory, the pope could do something positive about it. In practice, he won’t.”
Then there is the reality that the church, to many, simply seems irrelevant, given all the modern world has to offer. Ferenc Acs, 35, had been baptized a Catholic and said he was relieved that Benedict “seems to be more moderate than expected.”
But Mr. Acs, a Ph.D. candidate in neuropsychology at Regensburg, did not expect much change in church doctrine he disagrees with. He does not expect to return to church. And he said he had no plans to attend the pope’s Mass on Tuesday.
“If you’re going to hike five kilometers for a spectacle,” he said, “I prefer rock concerts.”
Mark Landler reported from Regensburg, and Ian Fisher from Rome.