Benedict Xvi’s Mission

By Giacomo Galeazzi
Vatican Insider
March 22, 2012

http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/homepage/the-vatican/detail/articolo/papa-el-papa-pope-vaticano-vatican-cuba-messico-13709/

Benedict XVI

Tomorrow the Pope embarks on a trip that is as much religious as it is political. During his visit, the Pope is expected to meet Cuban dissidents and Fidel Castro but not the Mexican victims of the paedophile founder of the Legion of Christ, Maciel. The potential meeting is not formally part of Benedict XVI’s schedule. “Mexican bishops have not asked for this,” said Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi. Meanwhile, the climate ahead of the Pope’s arrival in Mexico in heating up on account of the top secret documents published by Mexican magazine Proceso about cover-ups in the Curia. Maciel committed crimes and misdeeds that “Wojtyla could not ignore.”

Benedict XVI will be visiting four cities in Mexico and Cuba. On the occasion of the bicentennial of independence, the leader of the global Catholic Church will make ten speeches over a period of six days, on Central America’s potential and contradictions. Guanajuato is the core of Mexican Catholicism but it is also home to five drug cartels and the scene of violent fighting between criminal organisations and police (with an annual toll of one thousand victims). Mexico is the world’s second most densely populated Catholic Country but anti-clericalism makes it impossible for bishops to exercise their sacred office publicly.

The Pope will then go to Cuba, where the Church is working undercover to achieve a “soft” transition towards democracy (based on the model of the post-Franco era in Spain). Here, Benedict XVI will attend a series of institutional and pastoral meetings which will culminate in Havana on 23 March with a mass in Plaza de la Revolucion, where huge rallies have taken place under the Castro regime. Ratzinger will read out the agenda for the future in Spanish, turning over some dark pages both inside and outside the Church.