Going back home

Pope Benedict is returning to his homeland. This does not mean he is returning to Germany: the Holy father in fact is returning to Bavaria, which for him and for all Bavarians has a far more specific meaning than returning to Germany as a country that now also includes Westphalia, Saxony, Brandenburg, Hamburg, Pomerania and many other Regions. A year ago the Pontiff visited Cologne on the Rhine, where he met I million young people from all over the world. This year he will meet his Bavarian fellow citizens. The theologian Pope has never made a secret of his predilection for Bavaria. But one should really say Oberbayern – Upper Bavaria. Because the whole of Bavaria with its 12 million inhabitants is larger that Belgium and many northern Bavarians are Protestants. A Pope’s visit is never a nostalgic visit; it is always a pastoral visit. In spite of this, the Holy Father has emphasised on a number of occasions that he a has a great desire to once again see the places and the people so dear to him, those close to him during the years when he was a professor of theology and the archbishop of Munich. Hence the various stages of his journey will include Munich, Altötting, Regensburg, Freising – with a quick visit to Marktl am Inn, where the Pope was born in 1927. Although Joseph Ratzinger’s parents left Marktl when he was only two years old. The first stop will be in Munich; returning to this city means returning to the point in which the great theologian’s life changed. In fact, in 1977 the Nuncio informed Ratzinger that Pope Paul VI has appointed him as the Archbishop of Munich, the successor to the great Döpfner, who so greatly influenced the Second Vatican Council II. The dialogue with their intellectual bishop was not always easy for the Bavarian parish priests. When leaving Munich, perhaps Joseph Ratzinger himself was under the impression that the talent God has bestowed on him was more suitable for promoting the faith in Rome.The next stop will be in Altötting, in the diocese of Passau, where the Pope was born. The sanctuary in Altötting has been the destination of many pilgrimages undertaken by the Ratzinger family. The Holy Father feels at home there and there he also experiences the faith of many Catholics who have been visiting the sanctuary for more than 500 years. Regensburg on the Danube – founded by the Romans as Castra Regina – was the last professorship held by the Holy Father. The professor thought he would stay there until the end of his life. That was why he bought a house – in Pentling – and buried his parents and his sister there.The visit to Bavaria is not only the result of nostalgia, but also the desire for a new evangelization that is not superfluous even in his homeland. And Benedict XVI knows that enthusiasm arising from the fact that the Pope is German cannot hide the fact that there are German theologians who still doubt that the “Panzer-Cardinal” has really become a mild and humble Pope. The Pope will of course try and persuade the increasingly smaller number of those who still doubt, that there is no question of condemnation but rather of building together the house of the Lord. The last stage of the visit will be Freising, where Ratzinger started to teach theology soon after the Second World War. In Freising there is the co-chair of München.I will comparer the Pope’s visit to Bavaria to Jesus’ visit to: to persuade one’s neighbours is far more difficult than persuading those far from us. The Pope’s heartbeat will faster due to this commitment and also due to the joy of being in his own home again.