benedict xvi at 80
“May he be ever more understood in the truth, and in the simplicity of the evangelical, typically evangelical, messages that he wishes to communicate to the world to change the heart of the world”. That’s the hope expressed by Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, to Benedict XVI on his 80th birthday. The cardinal’s birthday good wishes were expressed during a television interview (on RaiUno), during which the Secretary of State said that what he especially appreciated in the Pope was “the profundity of his knowledge of the truth and of the Christian revelation, and on the other hand his simplicity and, I would say, his capacity of persuasion. And hence his ability to communicate God’s affection for man, the face of the God who is Love, a God who is close to us, who walks at our side, who succours all our infirmities and who helps us to re-comprehend in a different way the sufferings of the world and the sufferings of the innocent”. “We need only think of the words he pronounced at the end of the Via Crucis, when he pointed out that the gravest sin is hardness of heart. The Pope – concluded the cardinal – invites us to have a heart of flesh that feels compassion for all the sufferings and all the weaknesses of man and that places itself at the side of others as any Good Samaritan”.
