Pope celebrates mass ahead of visit to Bavaria

ALTOETTING – Pope Benedict XVI yesterday held the second open-air mass of his nostalgic pilgrimage to Germany’s Bavaria region, before visiting the house where he was born 79 years ago.

Benedict told an estimated 60 000 pilgrims at the mass in the town of Altoetting they should make more space for God, “giving him a place in the world, in our lives, and letting him enter into our time and our activity”. The pontiff was to visit the house where he was born on April 6, 1927 in nearby Marktl-am-Inn in the afternoon.Although the Pope was expected to make only a 30-minute stop in the town of 2 700 residents, his old home has been extensively renovated for the event.The yellow and white-painted exterior of the house has been hastily cleaned after vandals threw blue paint at it early on Sunday.Among the congregation at the mass in Altoetting was the pope’s elder brother George, 82.The pope arrived in Munich on Saturday and celebrated an open-air mass before 250 000 pilgrims in the city on Sunday.In Altoetting, a smiling Benedict was given an enthusiastic welcome after flying by helicopter into the town, a popular pilgrimage centre which draws an estimated one million Catholics annually.Before celebrating the mass, he was driven in the pope mobile to the Chapel of Grace, to pray to the image of the Black Madonna in a silver shrine on the high altar.Maria Schwarzer, 70, a retired care assistant from Altoetting, said she was delighted with the pope’s sermon during Sunday’s mass in Munich in which he said the Catholic church in Germany must become more spiritual.Benedict is making his fourth foreign trip since becoming pope in April last year and the second to Germany in that time, which included visits to Poland and Spain.He is due to visit Turkey in November and Brazil next year.Nampa-AFPThe pontiff was to visit the house where he was born on April 6, 1927 in nearby Marktl-am-Inn in the afternoon.Although the Pope was expected to make only a 30-minute stop in the town of 2 700 residents, his old home has been extensively renovated for the event.The yellow and white-painted exterior of the house has been hastily cleaned after vandals threw blue paint at it early on Sunday.Among the congregation at the mass in Altoetting was the pope’s elder brother George, 82.The pope arrived in Munich on Saturday and celebrated an open-air mass before 250 000 pilgrims in the city on Sunday.In Altoetting, a smiling Benedict was given an enthusiastic welcome after flying by helicopter into the town, a popular pilgrimage centre which draws an estimated one million Catholics annually.Before celebrating the mass, he was driven in the pope mobile to the Chapel of Grace, to pray to the image of the Black Madonna in a silver shrine on the high altar.Maria Schwarzer, 70, a retired care assistant from Altoetting, said she was delighted with the pope’s sermon during Sunday’s mass in Munich in which he said the Catholic church in Germany must become more spiritual.Benedict is making his fourth foreign trip since becoming pope in April last year and the second to Germany in that time, which included visits to Poland and Spain.He is due to visit Turkey in November and Brazil next year.Nampa-AFP