[svcw]

This has nothing to do with this thread but could someone who is a Catholic explain to me why your Pope is preaching in arabic?
I am just not getting that.

[Mrs. Don-o]

(1) For the benefit of 10 million Arabic-speaking Christians.

(2)For the benefit of 1 billion Arabic-speaking^* non-Christians who need to hear about Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior of the World.

(^*May speak Pashtun, Syriac or Tagalog at home, but their prayer-language is Arabic, anyway)

[Buckeye McFrog]

could someone who is a Catholic explain to me why your Pope is preaching in arabic?

A key doctrine of Vatican II was that the Gospel should be proclaimed to the people in their own native languages. A very practical outlook frankly. So if Pope Benedict was in an Arab country at the time it would be consistent for him to deliver remarks in Arabic.

That being said, there has always been a hard-core cadre that believes Vatican II was wrong, and that the Mass and all related preaching should be done in Latin. And they hold a lot of sway at present. They rewrote the liturgy in the New Roman Missile as a jumbled mess of Middle English and Latin, virtually indecipherable to the modern speaker of English. So ironically I think Pope Benedict's remarks in Latin were probably far more clear to that audience than the typical Liturgy in America is today.

[Salvation]

Even Paul went to Arabia.

“Go out to the whole world and preach the good news, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

[ArrogantBustard]

why your Pope is preaching in arabic?

Why shouldn't he preach in the native language spoken by Christians throughout the Near East? I am just not getting why that is a problem.