” “Devoted to Mary and bound to the Holy See. These are “the two distinctive signs” that for 600 years have marked out, according to Benedict XVI, Santa Maria dell’Anima, “the home of the German-speaking Catholics of Rome”. It is just to commemorate this canonical institution that today the Pope met its rector and the other persons in charge of it. To all of them, the Pope gave his “warm Gruess Gott”. “Since the start said the Pontiff two distinctive signs have marked out the Anima, it being dedicated to Jesus’ mother, and the special bond existing between the Institution and the Holy See. Mary stretches out her hand over the souls of the pilgrims who are on the way of the pilgrimage of their life and for whom Rome has become an essential station. Since my predecessor, Saint Pius IX, has related the foundation of the soul with a seminary college in 1859, this institute has played an essential bridging role. The priests and the seminarians who live at the Anima can find the greatness, the beauty of the universal church, learn about their beloved catholicity at the “romanitass Ecclesiae”. Therefore, I trust that this institute, which is German and Roman at the same time, will convey a very special love to the successors of the apostle Peter and to the Holy See”. “I ask the priests and all the persons in charge of the institute to devote themselves to sacramental life in the community of the soul, before giving priority to any other activity ended Pope Ratzinger There, where the German-speaking Catholics of Rome look for and find their spiritual home, that’s the place where Jesus Christ must be”.
