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to the National Press | 4/19/05 
Pope Benedict XVI, born in Germany and known until today as Joseph Cardinal
Ratzinger, appeared in St. Peter’s Square today and delivered the Urbi et
Orbi, or To the City and the World, blessing as the 265th pontiff of the Roman
Catholic Church. As a cardinal and chief theologian to John Paul
II, now being called John Paul the Great, Cardinal Ratzinger was known as a moral
and theological conservative. Pope Benedict XVI is being described as a warm,
humble, quiet and lovely man. In taking the name Benedict, the
new pope recalls the essential teaching of his immediate namesake, Benedict XV
(Reigned 1914-1922) who wrote in Humani Generis Redemptionem (On Preaching the
Word of God): “It was the desire of Jesus Christ once He had
wrought the Redemption of the human race by His death on the altar of the Cross,
to lead men to obey His commands and thus win eternal life. To attain this end
He used no other means than the voice of His heralds whose work it was to announce
to all mankind what they had to believe and do in order to be saved. "It
pleased God, by the foolishness of our preaching, to save them that believed."
[Cor. i:21] He chose therefore His Apostles, and after infusing into their minds
by the power of the Holy Ghost, the gifts in harmony with their high calling,
"Go ye into the world," He told them, "and preach the Gospel."
[Mark xvi, 15] Their preaching renewed the face of the earth. For if the religion
of Christ has withdrawn the minds of men from errors of every kind to the truth,
and won their hearts from the degradation of vice to the excellence and beauty
of every virtue, assuredly it has done so by means of that very preaching. "Faith
then cometh by hearing; and hearing by the word of Christ." [Rom. x:17] Wherefore
since by God's good pleasure, things are preserved through the same causes by
which they were brought into being, it is evident that the preaching of the wisdom
taught us by the Christian religion is the means Divinely employed to continue
the work of eternal salvation, and that it must with just reason be looked upon
as a matter of the greatest and most momentous concern. That preaching, therefore,
must form the object of Our special care and attention, particularly so, if in
any way, it may have lost perhaps some of its original perfection or its efficacy
may have been impaired.” If this is indeed indication of this man’s
passion, than we can be assured that his papacy will be characterized by the proclamation
of the Gospel, as was his predecessor, John Paul the Great.
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