Pope Does El Camino

Since it was not reported by the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, or the U.S. press in general (except for the Washington Post on its back pages), the Woodchip Gazette will note that Pope Benedict has paid a second visit to Spain where he made pilgrimage (mini-version) to the tomb of Saint James, at Compostella.

The Princes of Asturias, welcome Pope Benedict to the Accompaniement
of the Papal and Royal Anthems

Arriving in Galicia, the Pope exhorted Spain and Europe to be "concerned not only with people’s material needs but also with their moral and social, spiritual and religious needs, since all these are genuine requirements of our common humanity."

At the Shrine of St. James Benedict stated that "To go on pilgrimage really means to step out of ourselves in order to encounter God where he has revealed himself The Church is this embrace of God, in which men and women learn also to embrace their brothers and sisters and to discover in them the divine image and likeness which constitutes the deepest truth of their existence, and which is the origin of genuine freedom."

The Pope has called for a rapprochment ("meeting") between the Church and the Spanish Government which are in conflict over the issues of abortion, divorce and marriage. Spain's prime minister Jose Luis Zapatero was not in attendance to greet His Holiness at the airport, and a gay "kiss in" is planned on Sunday when Benedict visits Barcelona to consecrate Gaudi's fantasmagorical Cathedral of the Holy Family, a hundred years in the building.

Earlier in the week, at a Papal Audience on the eve of All Saints Day, the Pope stated that "God Excludes No One."




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