RADIO VATICANA REPORT: On Friday evening in
the Sala Clementina in the Apostolic Palace, Pope Benedict XVI received in
audience the Corps of Gendarmerie – the police and security force of Vatican
City State. The Holy Father granted the audience in order to offer his encouragement and express his gratitude after a particularly challenging period for the Papal Gendarmes.
In his remarks, the Pope said, “This occasion gives me the opportunity to express my profound feelings of respect, my heartfelt encouragement, and my deep gratitude for the generous service you perform with discretion, competence, and efficiency, and not without sacrifice.”
He noted, “Among its other duties, the Gendarmerie is called to greet with courtesy and kindness the many pilgrims and visitors to the Vatican, who come from Rome, from Italy and all over the world. . . . In every pilgrim or visitor, you know you must see the face of a brother or sister that God has placed in your path, and therefore receive them with kindness and help them, knowing that each one is a part of the great human family.”
Pope Benedict continued, “Dear Gendarmes and Firefighters, your special place in the heart of Christendom, where crowds of faithful come tirelessly to meet the Successor of Peter and to visit the tombs of the Apostles, arouses more and more in each of you the ambition to intensify the spiritual dimension of life, as well as the commitment to deepen your Christian faith, bearing courageous witness in every circumstance with a consistent way of life.” To that end, he said, the Year of Faith can be a tremendous help: “it is a privileged occasion for rediscovering how much joy there is in believing and communicating to others that the saving and liberating encounter with God realizes the deepest aspirations of man, his desires for peace, for brotherhood, and for love.”
The Pope concluded his remarks with a renewed expression of his “sincere and affectionate thanks” for the work of the Gendarmerie and the Vatican Fire Department, and granted to all those gathered, and to their families, the Apostolic Blessing.
POPE MEETS PRINCE ALBERT OF MONACO
Pope Benedict XVI on
Saturday met with Prince Albert II of Monaco, and his wife, Princess Charlene.
The meeting marked the 55th anniversary of the meeting of Prince Rainier and
Princess Grace of Monaco with Pope Pius XII in 1957. According to a communiqué
from the Vatican Press Office, their talks focused on the significant
contribution of the Catholic Church in the social life of the Principality and
various international issues, such as the integral development of peoples and
the protection of natural resources and the environment. The couple gave Pope
Benedict a picture and book about their ancestor, Cardinal Jerome Grimaldi, who
lived in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Holy Father gave the
prince and princess a sanguigna, or red pencil drawing, of St. Peter’s
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