Thank you for posting this! Today was our final day of Religious Eudcation. I work with the older students who just made their Confirmation. Following his visit to the Yonker's seminary, I printed out a copy of the Holy Father's address to youth and asked them to read it and report on how his message was pertinent to them. Like most young teens, they did the assignment but retained little of the message. We dissected it and I dwelled on Pope Benedict's recollection from his teen years. I asked if they were following the presidential candidates and what they understood about them. The discussion turned into a very educational and poignant lesson on how the words "compassion" and "mercy" for those who are born disabled or ill can become a springboard for elected officials to propose legislation that would permit post birth abortion. And then took it to the ultimate level of generating the "perfect society", much like the Nazis.
Pope Benedict's lectures, treatises, homilies, writings and books are like deep wells brimming with great wisdom and knowledge. The media likes nothing more than to extract 'sound bites' and usually miss the greater message. We should all be greatful to freeper ELS for her postings of the Holy Father's weekly audiences. I hope these will one day be published in a book for easy reference and meditation.
On another thread, Kolokotronis said he felt he was seeing the first true Father of the Church in many hundreds of years. I feel that way, too - I am sure BXVI is going to become a reference and people are going to be reading him many, many years hence.
I think humility is a hallmark of all of them. When I saw him at an audience in Rome in 2007, people were shouting and screaming for him as he left - and I could tell that he did not like it one bit. That is, he appreciates their enthusiasm, but he doesn’t feel it should be directed at him personally.