Posted on 09/10/2006 10:15:23 PM PDT by boromeo
COMMENT: In April of 1977, Smithsonian Magazine printed this picture, entitled "An Unconventional portrait of Pope Paul VI is accepted by the Vatican." A special prize will be awarded to the Freeper who can correctly identify the most Masonic symbols! Marks, get set, go!
"An Unconventional portrait of Pope Paul VI is accepted by the Vatican."
Smithsonian Magazine, April, 1977, Page 60-61
"Those great patrons of the arts, the Renaissance popes, usually commissioned the artist in their employ - Raphael, Titian, Velazquez - to paint their portraits. The result was some of the greatest paintings ever produced.
"Since then the practice has fallen off (along with the art of portraiture). So it was with some surprise that the world learned last fall that a portrait had been painted of Pope Paul VI, even though he did not commission it or, for that matter, sit for it. Moreover, it was in a semiabstract style unlike that of any previous papal portrait.
"The artist was a 42-year-old German named Ernst Gunter Hansing. Pope Paul did not at first respond to having his picture painted with any enthusiasm, but he later relented. Hansing was given a small studio in the building that houses the Vatican gas station, and for the next two and a half years, during 13 separate visits to Rome, he observed his subject from the front row at papal audiences.
"The finished portraint has been accepted by the Pope. His Holiness described the painting as "a mirror of the situation in the Church today." Earlier, on seeing a working sketch, he made what was probably his closest approach to art criticism. It was gracefully oblique: "One almost needs a new philosophy to graps the meaning of this in its context."
Ummm... Are you a Roman Catholic in communion with +Bendict XVI?
Not to be drawn into any sedavancantist games, but I can at least 3.
What makes you think he isn't?
It's a sedevacantist to talk about Masons?
OK FReepers - here's a hint. Three pillars are a common in Masonic symbolism (one on the left, two on the right) but there are MANY more! Remember, Paul VI 'accepted' this picture, so see if you can spot as many Masonic symbols as he probably did!
compass, crescent moon, pentagram, upside down cross (maybe not overtly freemason, but whatever).
From the Nov. 8, 1971 issue of TIME magazine:
Behind a locked door in Vatican City waits a present for Pope Paul VI that may conceivably please its recipient but has already shocked many who have seen photographs of it. The gift is a large (about 71 ft. by 12 ft.) portrait of His Holiness, painted in a semi-abstract mode, in which the Pope's emaciated, suffering face and folded hands are the focus of splintering shafts of light. German Painter Ernst Guenter Hansing, 42, sketched his subject during twelve protracted stays at the Vatican over a period of 21 years. Though he never had a private sitting, he was given a front-row seat at papal ceremonies in which to work. "I wanted more than just a picture of a person," says Hansing, a Lutheran. "I wanted to show the tension-fraught situation of the church, caught in a multiplicity of issues, as reflected in the countenance of the Pope."
1. Three pillars
2. Compass
3. Cresent moon
4. Pentagram
There's more! Come on Freepers, let's put those 'Where's Waldo?' skills to work!
Zero.
It's an ink blot test for nutjobs.
Yes, major tinfoil territory here.
If anyone is paying attention, they know that Masons cannot become Catholics and vice-versa and that the current pope re-iterated this prohibition in his previous position.
It may supposed to be Paul VI, but it reminds me of nothing so much as Count Olaf from the Unfortunate Events series by Lemony Snicket.
Well, I think we do need to be a little slower on the trigger in accusation. I didn't think that this was accusing Pope Paul VI of being a Freemason, just that their was symbolism in this goofy painting. Freemasonry was a hot topic during the time of Paul VI- remember he fired the author of the new liturgy because he believed he was a Freemason (I'm not claiming there is evdience Archbishop Annibale Bugnini was a Freemason, merely that Pope Paul VI fired him because he believed he was. Archbishop Bugnini himself claimed that this was the rerason he was exhiled, although he denied that he really was a mason. The Vatican never denied the public claims that that is why they fired him, which would be unjust if it weren't true.) At around the same time an Italian newspaper published a list of names in of curial officials that were supposedly masons. For this reason, I think it's unfair to sau only sedevacantists talk about masons.
An upside-down crucifix is always Satanic.
However, an upside-down cross (no corpus) is sometimes used as a symbol of St. Peter, who was crucified upside-down.
Whether the artist meant anything like that, of course, is open to conjecture.
2. Compass
3. Cresent moon
4. Pentagram
5. Sphynx at the top of the pillar
6. Enough pentagrams and triangles to make you dizzy
7. Zoom in at the top - spooky faces galore.
I dunno, but I think this photo looks a little retouched. Not as fake as Reuters, but pretty fake.
(/humor)
The upside-down cross is the cross of St. Peter. Sixteen centuries before the Church of England asserted it was satanic, the Catholic Church recognized legends that St. Peter had been crucified upside-down, insisting he was not worthy to die the same death as Christ.
Needless to day, however, Paul VI must not have been a happy soul.
Without going so far as to say he was not a legitimate pope, he certainly did more to destroy the Catholic Church than any other person in history, including Luther, Calvin and Lenin. I hate to call a pope an idiot, but the phrase "useful idiot" does seem an apt cliche'
The upside-down cross is the cross of St. Peter. Sixteen centuries before the Church of England asserted it was satanic, the Catholic Church recognized legends that St. Peter had been crucified upside-down, insisting he was not worthy to die the same death as Christ.
Needless to day, however, Paul VI must not have been a happy soul.
Without going so far as to say he was not a legitimate pope, he certainly did more to destroy the Catholic Church than any other person in history, including Luther, Calvin and Lenin. I hate to call a pope an idiot, but the phrase "useful idiot" does seem an apt cliche'
"Upside down crosses are SATANIC."
And here I was thinking they had to do with St. Peter.
"Petagram"
Is actually an ancient Christian symbol.
"Three pillars are a common in Masonic symbolism"
Actually, it's two pillars that are a masonic symbol, and they represent the two pillars in front of Soloman's temple, in the base of which the Law was re-found during the return from Babylonian captivity, presumably placed there by the original, and quite thoughtful, masons, as much knowledge had been lost because of the Babylonian sack of the Temple.
People need to read the Old Testament, more.
That is ugly. Big time ugly, ugly with a captial UG. I think it's also evidence of a diseased mind and a tortured soul, like most "modern art". I think it says more about the painter than it does about the subject ... yet another common problem with "modern art".
SO WHAT?
Actually, a PETAgram is what I use to order steak from room service. ;^D
Actually, it's two pillars that are a masonic symbol
My mistake, you are correct. Two pillars is the right answer.
"My mistake, you are correct. Two pillars is the right answer."
Maybe it's 1 1/2 masonic symbols. :)
Or, if you're like me, you thought of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the pillars of my faith :)
(People can see what they want to see in anything.)
"Actually, a PETAgram is what I use to order steak from room service."
Oh yeah, hack on the guy who Freeps with a blackberry.
The buttons are small.
Two 'columns' are a masonic symbol, but 'three pillars' are also symbolic.
There are over a dozen identifiable symbols in this painting, and so far, only 7 have been identified...
I like it.....
Have you had a chance to actually pee on his grave or must you satisfy yourself with mere rhetoric?
So WHAT if the Vatican accepted it?
R U one of those who think Pope Pius XII was the last legitimate Pope?
>> Have you had a chance to actually pee on his grave or must you satisfy yourself with mere rhetoric? <<
Naahh... Apparently he wasn't too good at picking up on symbolic criticism.
Speaking of talking about really old news, what happened? Returning to apolitical news, now that the election is done?
And the answer will be: Humanae Vitae. 1968. Pope Paul VI.
Beautiful.
*I guess Pope Benedict, who holds his weekly Wednesday Audiences in Paul VI Hall in the Vatican is unaware of what his actions symbolise.
ADDRESS OF POPE JOHN PAUL II AT A CONCERT MARKING THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE BIRTH OF POPE PAUL VI
Saturday, 22 November 1997
Your Eminences,
Venerable Brothers in the Episcopate and the Priesthood, Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen of the Diplomatic Corps,
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
In the memory and heart of the Church and the world, as Cardinal Casaroli clearly stated in his heartfelt remembrance, the Servant of God Pope Paul VI has a monument that no one can destroy. This evening’s solemn celebration is further proof of it. In this hall named after him, his figure, more alive than ever in all of us, has been so effectively recalled by the generous commitment of so many people, to whom I now address a word of greeting and gratitude.
I first address my thanks to the members of the International Festival Orchestra of Brescia and Bergamo and to the Prague Chamber Choir, and to Maestro Agostino Orizio, who directed them so well. Their magnificent performance raised all our spirits to that dimension of harmonious beauty which Paul VI frequently indicated as a vehicle for knowing and communicating the truth.
In particular, I express my cordial gratitude to dear Cardinal Agostino Casaroli, for long years my appreciated and closest co-worker, who has illumined this commemoration with his ample and profound account, which in certain passages had the tone of a touching witness reinforced by many years of sharing the great Pontiff’s pastoral concerns.
Veneration and filial affection for Pope Paul VI have brought a great many people here this evening. Many of them knew him personally; some, the more fortunate, benefited from his friendship. I address my fraternal wishes to each of them.
First of all I respectfully greet President Oscar Luigi Scalfaro of Italy, and all the other authorities and dignitaries present. I next greet the Cardinals, with a special thought for Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, the former Cardinal Montini’s successor in the cathedra of St Ambrose. I also greet Archbishop Pasquale Macchi, Bishop John Magee and Auxiliary Bishop Vigilio Mario Olmi of Brescia, who has come here with the President of the Paul VI Institute of Brescia, the mayor of that city and the parish priest of Concesio. Lastly, with particular feeling, I greet all his relatives and friends here with us this evening.
In mentioning Concesio, the birthplace of Giovanni Battista Montini, I naturally think of his family home and the baptismal font where he received the sacrament of new birth on the very day that — how can we fail to remember it? — the soul of St Thérèse of Lisieux departed this world. We can certainly link the spirituality of this Carmelite saint with the religious desire of Pope Paul VI, who expressed his great love for Christ through his long, wise service to the Church.
During these 100 years, the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council was without doubt the most important ecclesial event. The Lord desired a frail son of the Brescian region to become the sturdy helmsman of the barque of Peter precisely during the celebration of the Council and in the first years of its implementation. We are all deeply grateful to God for the gift of this great Pope, who knew how to guide the Church in a historical period of vast, sudden and unforeseeable changes. Let us praise the Lord with sincere gratitude for the priceless legacy of teaching and virtue left by Paul VI to believers and to all humanity. It is our task to treasure this wise legacy. May God help us to continue his apostolic and missionary work, through the intercession of Mary, whom my venerable Predecessor especially honoured with the title "Mother of the Church".
With my Blessing I again express my sentiments of gratitude to all.
*So, we have Johannes Paulus Magnus praising him as "great" twice. And we have Pope Benedict choosing Paul VI Hall for his weekly audiences.
Nahh, what do they know anyways..
Your Eminences, Your Excellencies,
Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen,
Brothers and Sisters in Jesus Christ,
1. Towards the end of the fourth century, Bishop Paulinus of Nola wrote to Bishop Nicetas of Remesiana (today Bela Palanka in Orthodox Serbia): "Thanks to you, the barbarians are learning to sing praise to Christ with a Roman heart". For Paulinus, Nicetas was the author of the Te Deum, the hymn of praise to the divine Trinity, which a later tradition attributed instead to Ambrose of Milan. Today, scholars who favour one or the other author agree about joining the two schools and say that the Te Deum has a heart that is both Roman and Ambrosian, thereby combining these two venerable liturgical traditions.
In the spirit of the Te Deum, let us celebrate this moment of great joy for the Dioceses of Rome, Milan and Brescia, and with them for all the Bishops of Italy and the Catholic community of the whole world. We are celebrating, in fact, the successful conclusion of the diocesan process for the canonization of the Servant of God Giovanni Battista Montini, Pope Paul VI, which has consisted in a rigorous investigation of his life, his work, his virtues and his reputation for holiness. It lasted almost six years, during which many testimonies were collected, also through the appropriate rogatory commissions. This concluding act means that shortly it will be possible to begin the procedures reserved to the Holy See; thus we are closer to the time when the heroic virtues of Paul VI can be proclaimed.
A living example of fidelity and humility
Let us give thanks to God! And let us also thank everyone who has contributed to these proceedings: Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, Archbishop of Milan, Archbishop Bruno Foresti, Bishop emeritus of Brescia, and his recently appointed successor, Bishop Giulio Sanguineti, and most especially Archbishop Pasquale Macchi, who was the exemplary secretary of Archbishop Montini and later of Pope Paul VI. We also thank Mons. Gianfranco Bella, president of the Ordinary Tribunal of the Diocese of Rome, Fr Paolo Molinari, S.J„ postulator for the cause of the servant of God, and Dr Giuseppe Camadini, president of the Paul VI Institute of Brescia, and with them all their staff, for all the documents they made available.
2. At this moment, the biographical data about the candidate for the honours of the altar should be mentioned. However, since they are well known to everyone, let us take this occasion instead to reflect on his Christian virtues, as we wait with trust for the Church's authority to give solemn approval of their exemplarity.
I think we can say that Pope Paul VI, a true servant of God, faithful to one love with an undivided heart and without reservation, was first and foremost a living example of humility. He accepted the See of Peter with an extraordinary sense of responsibility. On the one hand, he felt he was the object of a supreme love that called for an unlimited response: "Peter, do you love me more than these?" (Jn 21:15); however, his human limitations seemed overwhelming to him and totally unequal to so lofty a task, had the Lord's grace not filled the gap and sustained his feeble efforts. He did not hide these feelings: indeed, he spoke of them and repeated them with that intensity which caused his voice to quiver and almost tremble whenever a strong emotion flowed from his heart.
As a young priest, Montini had no ambitions for an ecclesiastical career; he would have liked to have been the pastor of souls in a parish, in his Diocese of Brescia. Instead, his life was taken in hand by others, in reality, by his Lord, and he obediently underwent a remarkable asceticism in the heart of the universal Church, in the shadow of Popes Pius XI and Pius XII. However, when he could freely take the initiative, he would be seen kneeling in the muddy snow on the outskirts of Milan, kissing the ground of that Archdiocese Which the Lord, through Peter, had entrusted to his pastoral care. He was seen kissing the ground of the new countries he visited as an apostolic pilgrim, starting with Jesus' own land, which he wanted to visit just a few months after his election.
Today kissing the ground may seem like something taken for granted and no longer makes an impression. Nonetheless, it was and still is the sign of total submission to God's will and to his plan of salvation, giving a Christian value to that precise place and moment, like Jesus, who in the Gospels appears so attached to the times and places of his earthly journey. It was not enough. Paul VI knelt to kiss the feet of the Orthodox Metropolitan Meliton, who was disconcerted by such humility; he knelt before the "men of the Red Brigades". He removed from his head the tiara with its three crowns, the dear gift of his Milanese people, and offered it to the poor, exchanging it definitively for a simple episcopal mitre. He abolished the papal court with its traditional pomp, keeping for himself just body guards and a security force. Some people noticed that although he used the traditional "We" throughout his life in his writings and talks, he used it less in his later years and often wrote it with a small letter rather than a capital: so great was his desire to humble himself. He lived the lesson of the Gospel: "... whoever would be great among you must be your ... slave; even as the Son of man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many" (Mt 20:26-28).
Charity translated into a broad vision of the Church
3. To give one's life is the supreme expression of charity, the queen of the virtues; the greater it is, the deeper the humility. He was taught this by the Apostle Paul, whose name, surprisingly, he made his own. Many of Paul's sayings were like a flame that burned within him: "The love of Christ impels us"; "I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls" (2 Cor 12:15); "To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some" (cf. 1 Cor 9:22). Jesus had said: "Greater love has no man than this: than to lay down his life for his friends" (cf. Jn 15:13). True love, in fact, is summed up in the giving of one's life, body and soul: in an active sense, by arousing it in others, as well as in a passive sense, by mortifying or sacrificing one's own life. Paul VI, pastor of souls, did this: he practised the highest degree of charity in his personal choices and in the exercise of his apostolic responsibilities.
Throughout his life he respected everyone; he loved friends and enemies alike; he forgave, helped and consoled; he considered without favouritism those near or far, and perhaps prodigal sons the most: he performed individual acts of kindness and sensitivity known to many, which time wilt reveal. Without ever losing sight of individuals, he was active in institutional charity on a large scale. During the war years he was Pius XII's trusted assistant. These were years of demanding service in the Secretariat of State, but also of feverish activity to help the victims of the world conflict. Pius XII's charity was also expressed in institutions such as the Vatican Information Office, which exchanged and searched for news about soldiers, prisoners and civilians, or the Pontifical Assistance Commission; and Montini was their soul, the man who overlooked nothing in providing the most generous relief possible for those who were painfully stricken. In the meantime he also practised charity in word and spiritual direction, leaving a deep impression on many souls.
Then there were his years in Milan: he organized the great city mission on the theme of "God the Father", the first experiment in reaching out to all types of people; he promoted projects for new churches; he cared for seminarians; he paid great attention to the world of culture and the arts, but also to priests in mountain areas, whom he personally went to see, visiting every parish in his immense Archdiocese.
As Pope, his charity was translated into a broad vision of the Church, especially in the Encyclical Ecclesiam suam, with its great circles of dialogue: domestic, interdenominational, interreligious, global. Within the Roman Curia, he strengthened John XXIII's institution for Christian unity and then created new ones for relations with Jews, non-Christians, Muslims and non-believers; he created the commissions for social communications, for the spiritual care of migrants and itinerants, the council for the laity, the commission "Iustitia et Pax" and the council "Cor Unum"; he called people from around the world to work in these offices. He foresaw the changing times, the growing need for religious faith, and for reflection on an ever increasing spiritual aridity. He felt that the witness of the Gospel should be taken directly to every corner of the earth, and he undertook his great apostolic journeys, while supporting the missionaries ad gentes with all his intellectual and practical efforts. But the Church is made up of local communities. He devoted his attention to them, starting with the Church of Rome, which with his urging and inspiration became more and more a Diocese and community of believers. Meanwhile he fulfilled one of the Council's wishes by establishing the Synod of Bishops for true co-responsibility in evangelization.
To know the depth of the servant of God's charity, it is helpful to recall one episode in his life. A Lufthansa plane was hijacked; the captain was killed and the terrorists' ultimatums came one after another. At the height of the tragedy, the Pope telegraphed his condolences to Cardinal Hoffner, President of the German Bishops' Conference, and added this sentence: "If it would be useful, we would offer our own person for the release of the hostages". This sentence was not meant for effect: it was himself, it was Montini.
Inwardly sustained by the virtue of hope
4. With him, charity went hand in glove with faith and hope. Every time he spoke as a Pastor, people realized that he was not speaking his own words but those of Another, or in the name of Another, the One who is man's all. When he spoke of Christ, he was transfigured. His prayers to Christ set his discourses on fire. His faith shone through his personality and was radiant in his words. In 1967 he inaugurated the Year of Faith to mark the 1,900th anniversary of the martyrdom of Peter and Paul. He closed it in 1968 in St Peter's Square, proclaiming "The Credo of the People of God". This is a profession of faith, as he himself said, based on "the creed of Nicaea, the creed of the immortal Tradition of the Holy Church of God", but enriched by the fruits of the Council and prompted by the difficult problems of the new era. At the time his Creed was not well received, either in or outside the Church. But he said: "We deem it our duty to fulfil the mandate entrusted by Christ to Peter, whose Successor We are, though the least in merit, namely, to confirm Our brethren in the faith"; the duty to "give witness to Our steadfast will to be faithful to the Deposit of Faith"; the duty to "take the greatest care not to harm the teachings of Christian doctrine". And in the text, after the many "We believe's", there is a revealing sentence: "We confess that the kingdom of God begun here below in the Church of Christ is not of this world whose form is passing, and that its proper growth cannot be confounded with the progress of civilization, of science or of human technology, but that it consists in an ever more profound knowledge of the unfathomable riches of Christ" (L'Osservatore Romano English edition, 11 July 1968, pp. 4-6).
Paul VI was inwardly sustained by the theological virtue of hope. His alleged pessimism is an invention of the media. Of course, he was a lucid and rigorous analyst of the evils before his eyes; and when he denounced the most serious evils, especially if they appeared in "his family", the community of believers in Christ, he does not hide his human and Christian anguish. But he was not an anguished Pope. He believed in the Church's future, in a new flourishing of Christianity. A Pastor who was not enlivened by great Christian hope could not have written so many programmatic documents, much less an Apostolic Exhortation on Christian joy, and could not have "redeemed the times" with such an abundance of apostolic projects.
5. Prudence, a cardinal virtue, inspired his life to such a point that it was easy for the malicious to distort and mistake it. According to the case, they described him as a progressive or a conservative; but no one could settle on either definition. Prudence never held him back, but was an incentive to justice and fortitude, which he practised and taught in the official exercise of his episcopal and later Petrine ministry, as well as in his daily, tireless, even if less obvious, opposition to the forces of evil.
With all his strength he tried to draw the Church's and the world's attention to the insanity of war and to global injustices, all the more serious and culpable because of humanity's wealth of material and technological resources and its fatal experiences of war. He was the first to go to the UN headquarters in New York, on 4 October 1965, and to cry out to the world: "No more war, war never again! It is peace that must guide the destiny of nations and of all humanity!". It was he who wrote in Populorum progressio that "development is the new name for peace" (n. 76). It was he who initiated the World Day of Peace.
Another scandal to which Paul VI repeatedly called attention was slums, then existing in large numbers even in Rome. He spared no effort in urging the clergy and public authorities to remedy them, but he himself had a village built in Acilia with 99 apartments, to house an equal number of families from the slums in a dignified way, which he gave to the municipality of Rome. Visiting the village a few months after its inauguration, he said: "Many think of the Pope as a fortunate man: well, you should know that all the sorrows of the world are in some way felt in his heart.... And suffering of others who still live in slums or are homeless; I feel the limitations of my means, the immense gap between the needs of the poor and the limits of my resources. But I hope, at least, that everyone will see in this project the sign of my sentiments and know that wherever help unfortunately does not reach, at least there is affectionate love". From this kind of sentiment a new term was coined which would be widely circulated in the Church: the "civilization of love".
Paul VI calmly bore his daily cross. He bore without complaint the serious ailments of age, as well as the sometimes negative impact from a public in part hostile. He was not an immediately popular Pope. He was an intellectual, from a middle-class family, and therefore suspect to the populist culture of the time. He was an innovator, but yielded nothing to vapid or libertarian fashions. And when he had to take a stance on a very delicate matter regarding Christian morality such as birth control, he consulted everyone and then listened to his inner conscience and his charism, publishing the Encyclical Humane vitae despite the foreseeable tumult it immediately unleashed.
His self-denial and temperance prompted Paul VI each day to sacrifice every type of comfort, to dedicate himself without respite to his apostolic work, audiences and travels. He kept late hours during his nights in Rome, closed in his private study, examining, annotating and settling pending matters, so that no one would have to suffer due to culpable delay. He never spared himself. In the last days of his life, he would still leave Castel Gandolfo to visit Frattocchie di Marino to pay homage at the tomb of Cardinal Giuseppe Pizzardo, his former superior and teacher; and he granted a private audience to the Hon. Alessandro Pertini, the new President of Italy, who had earnestly begged for one. Then, on 6 August, he rested in peace in the Lord.
6. We can therefore say that Paul VI was a true servant of God, faithful to a single love with an undivided heart and without reserve, that he loved Jesus Christ and all the humanity of the redeemed, as well as the beauty of human life on earth and the marvels of creation. In addition to the tasks he fulfilled and the words he spoke, the writings he left, many of which are private and unpublished, attest to his great heart. The praiseworthy Paul VI Institute in Brescia is gradually collecting and publishing them in their original manuscript form, where one can admire his distinctive, clear and regular handwriting, which makes a deep impression. I would tike to recall, among others, his "Unpublished Meditations", "Letter to the Red Bridages", "Thoughts on Death", "Testament" and, lastly, the manuscript text of his first Encyclical, Ecclesiam suam, which was written, corrected and finished entirely in his own hand.
I close by recalling that the Apostle Paul used these famous words in his Letter to Titus to express how much God loves us: "The goodness and loving kindness of God our Saviour appeared" (Ti 3:4). The Servant of God Pope Paul VI, a disciple and imitator of Christ, also made his life a revelation of the benignitas et humanitas brought to earth by the Son of God: he possessed great goodness and humanity. For this reason he was able to proclaim and bear witness in a genuine and effective way to that new world of which Zechariah, inspired by the Holy Spirit, sang at the birth of his own son: "You will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people ... to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace" (Lk 1:76-79).
For all these reasons, we wait with confidence for the beatification and canonization of the Servant of God Giovanni Battista Montini, for which we will unceasingly offer fervent petitions and prayers to God.
© L'Osservatore Romano, Editorial and Management Offices, Via del Pellegrino, 00120, Vatican City, Europe, Telephone 39/6/698.99.390.
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