The papal visit to Portugal, which began today, is meant to be “a proposal of wisdom and mission” under the “sign” of the Virgin of Fatima who “came from heaven to remind us of Gospel truths that constitute for humanity—so lacking in love and without hope for salvation—the source of hope,” the Pope said as he described the meaning of his four-day trip to Portugal.He spoke soon after landing at 11 am in Lisbon’s Portela Airport where he was met by Portuguese President Aníbal Cavaco Silva, other dignitaries and a 30-member choir who welcomed him in songs.
In his address, the Pontiff, speaking about the ancient ties that connect this country to the Church, said that the Church is “open to cooperating with anyone who does not [. . .] reduce to the private sphere the essential consideration of the human meaning of life. The point at issue,” he stressed, “is not an ethical confrontation between a secular and a religious system, so much as a question about the meaning that we give to our freedom.”
The Pope had already discussed Fatima on the plane when he met the reporters who are accompanying him on the trip. Our Lady will in fact be the central moment of his visit, which will take the Holy Father to the city of Porto as well as Lisbon. During the flight, Benedict XVI said that the abusive priests’ scandal is linked to the prophecy the Virgin entrusted to Lucia in the Third Secret.
“Together with the suffering of the Pope, which we can first see in the attack against John Paul II, the message of Fatima has indications on the future of the Church,” the Pope said. “In addition to the moments indicated in the visions, the passion of the Church is mentioned. Indeed, the Church is going to suffer,” he added. “The Lord said that Church will suffer until the end of the world. This is especially visible today.”
Concerning abuses by priests, the Pope said that it was something “terrifying”. The forgiveness the Church must give to those who repent cannot replace the justice that the courts must mete out. The “penance, prayer, acceptance and forgiveness that we must give” do not meet the “necessity for justice; forgiveness cannot be a substitute for justice.”
From the start, Fatima was a “loving design from God”, an “event” in which heaven itself was “open [. . .] like a window of hope that God opens when man closes the door to him—in order to refashion, within the human family, the bonds of fraternal solidarity based on the mutual recognition of the one Father”.
“The Virgin Mary,” he said, “came from heaven to remind us of Gospel truths that constitute for humanity—so lacking in love and without hope for salvation—the source of hope. To be sure, this hope has as its primary and radical dimension not the horizontal relation, but the vertical and transcendental one. The relationship with God is constitutive of the human being, who was created and ordered towards God; he seeks truth by means of his cognitive processes, he tends towards the good in the sphere of volition, and he is attracted by beauty in the aesthetic dimension. Consciousness is Christian to the degree to which it opens itself to the fullness of life and wisdom that we find in Jesus Christ. The visit that I am now beginning under the sign of hope is intended as a proposal of wisdom and mission.”
“From a wise vision of life and of the world,” the Pope added, “the just ordering of society follows. Situated within history, the Church is open to cooperating with anyone who does not marginalize or reduce to the private sphere the essential consideration of the human meaning of life.
The point at issue,” he stressed, “is not an ethical confrontation between a secular and a religious system, so much as a question about the meaning that we give to our freedom. What matters is the value attributed to the problem of meaning and its implication in public life. By separating Church and State, the Republican revolution which took place 100 years ago in Portugal, opened up a new area of freedom for the Church, to which the two concordats of 1940 and 2004 would give shape, in cultural settings and ecclesial perspectives profoundly marked by rapid change. For the most part, the sufferings caused by these transformations have been faced with courage. Living amid a plurality of value systems and ethical outlooks requires a journey to the core of one’s being and to the nucleus of Christianity so as to reinforce the quality of one’s witness to the point of sanctity, and to find mission paths that lead even to the radical choice of martyrdom.”
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